


The Fourteenth Warrior

by Redone



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types, The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Cultural Differences, Gen, lost in Middle-earth
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-05
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2017-12-10 12:03:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 22,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/785855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redone/pseuds/Redone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thorin's company has an unlucky number of members. Thorin and Balin decide to take measures to correct it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: Gandalf's Miscalculation

**Author's Note:**

> Unbetaed, but approved by Darth Daughter.

Dismayed and not a little angry, Bilbo eyed his kitchen. Every available space was covered in dirty dishes. All his pots and pans seemed to have been put to service the night before, after he had turned in. The tables looked as if the Battle of Green Fields had been fought on them, and he didn’t even want to contemplate what covered the floors under the tables. Did the dwarves only wash up when their princes were not there to serve as examples of dwarvish squalor? 

Well, at least his uninvited guests were all gone, to the last, and they had not taken him with them. That was something, at least, he thought, sighing. He really disliked washing up. He did. Sighing even more deeply, he went to find a decent breakfast to prepare for the gargantuan task laid out before him.

The complete and utter desolation that encountered him in the pantries nearly took his breath away. Even muttering three times “confusticate” and “bebother” didn’t ease his mind. Clearly, a trip to the market was even more urgent than washing up, if he was to avoid succumbing to famine this sunny morning!

Wishing rain and thunder upon all dwarf-folk, he picked up his jacket – dusty and covered in pieces of who-knows-what, after having been knocked on the floor from its place on the peg near the door, no doubt the work of these… these… ugh! – and stepped out and closed the door after him.

No sooner had he disappeared behind the Hill than Gandalf appeared on his doorstep, knocking impatiently. “Bilbo!” he called. “Time to be on the road!”

But there was no reply.

***

It was nearly past noon when Gandalf finally found the hobbit, chatting amiably with the butcher over a selection of hams and sausages. 

“My dear fellow,” Gandalf said after Bilbo had finally picked up all his parcels and packages, “whenever are you going to come?”

“Come where?”

Gandalf hissed impatiently. “Do not play the fool I know with certainty that you are not! The Company’s all packed and ready to be on their way, and Thorin Oakenshield will not take kindly to being made to wait.”

“Well then, I’m sure I wish them all a safe journey,” Bilbo said, shrugging. He was still quite bitter from his lack of breakfast and the state of his home, and wasn’t about to disguise the fact. “I’m sorry he’s been waiting in vain, but then, I suspect it had more to do with your meddling than with him.”

“You are not going then?”

“Going?” Bilbo’s voice rose nearly to the pitch of his grandma’s teakettle. The hobbit plopped his bags down on the roadside and faced Gandalf down, hands on his hips. “Going? Really? Do you really think me mad? An adventure, indeed! A dragon, even! Your Dwarf king at least made it quite clear that I am fully unsuitable for an endeavour of this kind, and I, for one, am in full agreement! At least one of them showing some sense! I am a sensible hobbit; whatever would I do on an adventure? And now, if you’ll excuse me, Gandalf, I have things to do. Your friends left my house barely standing and my pantry in such a sorry state that it is downright shameful! Can’t see as how I can set it all to rights in less than a week. Good day to you,” he added picking up his things again. 

“Well,” Gandalf spluttered. “Well. Upon my word, I have never been more sadly disappointed in all my many years.”

“At least you don’t have to wash up after an army of dwarves,” Bilbo snarked, and was off on his way. Then he threw over his shoulder, “If ever you bring them back this way, I hope you’ll give me advance warning so I’ll know not to be home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the movie the dwarves seem to have cleaned up after themselves, but according to the book, a part of why Bilbo was late was that he was doing the washing up.


	2. Chapter 1. The Hopping Hog

It was as if, bringing them the news that their prospective burglar had got cold feet, Gandalf had also brought with him all the bad luck that the number thirteen carried with it. The weather turned quite unexpectedly, a cold wind sprung up and brought with it an unending grey drizzle. Clouds raced across the skies, low and menacing, wrapping the evenings and mornings in a thick, wet fog.

 

The Baranduin was overflowing, and they nearly lost two ponies there. They did lose some of the packs, and Gandalf’s pipe, and the whole company’s pipeweed supply.

 

In spite of wetness, Thorin decided to camp out for their first night after Hobbiton. He was somewhat paranoid of the gossiping hobbits, and no doubt such a relatively big group of dwarves taking a detour from their usual route along the East Road, to visit a small hobbit village, would have attracted not a little gossip.

 

They all did their fair share of whining, muttering, griping and wallowing, but Gandalf’s grumbling and apologies seemed to have no end. “I was so sure of him!” he would say. Or, “A Took, upon my word! No more than a stuffy Baggins, and no better than he should be!” Or, “I really am sorry, Thorin.” Or (Ori swore that this was what he had heard, but sadly, none of the other dwarves had witnessed that glorious moment), “A fool, a fool, a thrice damned fool am I.”

 

And so they went, round and round, until all within hearing distance were heartily sick of it. Finally it was Dwalin who told him bluntly to “shut yer gob or yer pointy hat’ll be pointing _inwards_.” He earned the devoted (though unvoiced) praise and gratitude of many a dwarf for the whole evening.

 

There was not much conversation around the fire that they built (dwarves do know a thing or two about building fires, and they did have Gandalf with them). Even the ever-optimistic Bofur didn’t feel like one of his merry, bawdy songs, especially as his much loved flute had been lost with the packs. So they sat there, huddled together and miserable, trying to hide their noses under their hoods against the dripping rain and burrowing deep into their furs, holding their cloaks tightly around them against the wind. Some tried to suck their empty pipes, but that gave no satisfaction, and Gandalf only had a chicken bone to suck on, which made him especially sour and disagreeable.

 

Finally, even Thorin had enough of it. Eager as he was to be on his way to his ancestors’ home, even he could only take so much misery at a time. So, the next day when they came to an old inn, even though it was barely past midday, he said they would stop here for the night.

 

The inn (the “Hopping Hog”, even though quite clearly its hopping days were long over) was not very well situated, and somewhat rickety, but it did offer food and shelter for the few travellers who chose to stop here on their way to Bree or towards the more hospitable inns in the Shire. There was a sole peddler from Breeland who had taken shelter from the elements on his way to Buckland, and another figure huddled in the shadowy corner by the door. The dwarves trooped in, happy with the prospect of ale and warm stew. This close to the Shire, the innkeeper even had some pipeweed to sell, and suddenly the whole quest seemed a tad brighter.

 

As they waited for their stew, Thorin and Gandalf removed themselves to a quieter corner. Their muttered and hissed conversation grew more and more heated, until Gandalf plonked his mug of ale on the table. “Oh, plague upon you, stubborn dwarves,” he exclaimed and swept out into the rain.  

 

Thorin leaned back to puff his pipe gloomily, as Balin, Dwalin, Gloin and Oin wandered over to his table.

 

“What was this about, lad? The burglar again?” Balin asked.

 

“Oh aye,” Thorin growled angrily, “the _burglar_.”

 

“What use could such a little rabbity fellow have had?” Dwalin had never thought much of hobbits, and that particular one certainly hadn’t made him revise his opinion. “One more to feed, to protect, and fer what? Don’t think the bloke was even a real burglar.”

 

“Aye,” Gloin put in. “I don’t hold much of burglars and the like. Sounds too much like thieving, to me. Give me a good, honest dwarf any day!”

 

There was a chorus of agreements, but Thorin didn’t answer.

 

“I, for one, do not like that we are thirteen,” Oin put in. “’Tis unlucky. And with what’s waiting for us at the end of our quest, we could do with all the luck we can have.”

 

Balin pursed his lips. “Hmm. Hire someone, you mean? A fourteenth hand?”

 

“With what?” Thorin asked bitterly. “Anyone we might find would want to be paid up front. And who’s to say a hired hand will not slit all our throats at night? Or call those upon us who would try to stop us? My own people would not join this quest out of loyalty to me, and you would have a stranger among us?”

 

“And offer _our_ gold to a stranger?” Gloin agreed.

 

“The hobbit would have been a stranger,” Balin countered.

 

“The wizard vouched for him.”

 

“Yeah, much good it did,” Dwalin groused.

 

“Besides, where would we find such a dwarf? Dain’s people already refused us, so did all other clans –“

 

“I hear the so-called Rangers are good, honourable people and strong fighters,” Oin said, “perhaps one of them would be interested?”

 

“Not the Rangers – they’ve too close ties with the Elves,” Thorin said.

 

“Now we’re in a pickle,” Balin mused. “How do you find a hand to hire, in the middle of nowhere, who is a capable warrior, has no ties to the Elves, will not slit our throats or cheat us out of our legacy, and in doing so, would put up with a permanently sulky wizard?”

 

Thorin chuckled bitterly. “You are right as usual, old friend.”

 

At that moment, the innkeeper came over with bowls of steaming hot stew for everybody.

 

“Forgive me, gentle-dwarves, I did not mean to eavesdrop,” he said, “but it seems you are on the lookout for another hand to hire?”

 

“What of it?” Dwalin asked suspiciously.

 

“Well, there’s this lad,” he pointed towards a corner, “came in this morning. Asked for work, said he’d do anything for a bit of hot food.”

 

They looked toward the corner where a man was sitting on the floor, propped up against the wall. His face was turned away and eyes closed, but they could see he was not asleep – his fingers were twiddling with some item he held in his lap.

 

“Who is he?” Thorin asked.

 

“Don’t rightly know, Master Dwarf. Not from these parts, and not one of them Rangers either. Just appeared this morning. I let him in for the rain. Not much I can do for him here, though. He’s no coin to pay either.”

 

“So what you are saying,” Balin said slowly, “is that we should take this stranger off your hands? And why should we trust him if you do not?”

 

“Oh. Oh, no, no!” the innkeeper waved his hands frantically. “I’s just feeling sorry for the lad. Gotta help, and all that, and thought that perhaps as ye’d be trav’ling through Bree or someplace—“

 

There was a gust of loud and merry laughter from where the rest of the Company were sitting, enjoying their meal. The man in the corner shifted slightly, chancing a glance over. For a moment, bitter hunger flashed in his gaze, then he turned away again, closing his eyes.

 

“Some help,” Thorin said angrily. “You haven’t even fed him.”

 

“Now, don’t blame me for being poor, Master Dwarf. I can’t run this here inn on charity, can I? And him having naught to pay with, and not suited for any work around here – even if I had any to offer, which I haven’t, what with the custom dwindling these days, the roads growing perilous and all, so I can’t afford to feed him here for free. I’m doing my best, I am. Jest thought to help. And it’s not like there’s many folks to hire in these parts either. But suit yerselves, gentledwarves, don’t mind me. Don’t mind me at all.” Muttering crossly, the innkeeper toddled away.

 

The Dwarves looked distinctly unimpressed. They sat in silence for a while, staring at each other, before they picked up their spoons to start eating. But Balin dropped his immediately, shaking his head.

 

“Mahal curse us, we’re no better than a petty innkeeper! The poor man is still hungry, and I remember well enough what that feels like!” He stood and moved to pick up his bowl, but Thorin put a hand on his arm.

 

“Bring him here. Let him eat at a table, in company, not on the floor like a dog.”

 

Dwalin growled at that. “Weren’t many Men who would show us the same consideration, after the wyrm!”

 

“Then let us be the better men.”


	3. The Lucky Number Fourteen

“Hey there, lad.” The old dwarf sat down on his heels by the stranger. “You alright?”

Slowly his head turned and Balin was scrutinised by a pair of honey-brown eyes. The man seemed to be evaluating him, glancing at his long beard, elaborately embroidered coat, then at the sword on his belt. Slowly he sat up. “Can I help you, sir?”

“What’s your name?”

“… Cody,” the reply came somewhat cautiously.

“Balin, son of Fundin, at your service.  Well, Kaudi, there’s some hot stew, if you’d like.”

Once again there was a pause, a brief flicker of longing. “I don’t have anything to pay with, sir,” the man said.

Balin gave him a friendly smile. “Oh, no need, it’s just for the pleasure of your company.”

Cody huffed in disbelief, “Forgive me if I shall take that with a grain of salt,” but he nevertheless got on his feet.

For the first time, Balin got a good look at him. He was tall, easily taller than most men in Breeland, strongly built, and dressed in the oddest armour that the Dwarf had seen in his long life – at least, he thought it was an armour. Clearly not steel or iron or any other metal used for that kind of work, and being a Dwarf, Balin knew a thing or two about these matters. Some kind of homespun armour, perhaps, a fake made by one that could not afford the real thing? On the other hand, the man moved with an unconscious grace that came with confidence in his own strength. Probably still some sort of warrior, Balin thought, with some reservations because there was no sword or knife or any other weapon visible on him. However, he did appear to own a couple of items the purpose of which the Dwarf couldn’t even begin to guess, and the way he clipped them easily and smoothly to his belt fascinated the dwarvish curiosity in Balin.

The man also had ridiculously short hair and only about a week’s growth of beard, which made Balin worry a little, because among all Dwarven cultures, but also in many towns of Men that he had visited, a man’s head was shaved bald as a punishment, to shame him and mark him as a criminal. Had this man, Kaudi, recently committed a crime, then? Was he a thief, perhaps, or a liar? But, clearly he had been honest enough with Balin, and there was something bitter in his demeanour, something that made the wily old Dwarf decide to hear out the man’s own tale of how he had come to be so.

At their table, Oin and Gloin had shifted a little, to make room for the newcomer, but then, Fili and Kili had also wandered over, so it was somewhat crowded.

“Gentlemen,” Cody greeted them all with a somewhat jerky nod.

“It’s Dwarves,” Dwalin rumbled.

“Excuse me?”

“Dwarves. That’s what we are,” Balin explained, gesturing for the man to take a seat. “Not Men.”

“Oh. Sorry. I didn’t know that.”

“Never seen a Dwarf then?”

“Can’t say I have,” he shook his head.

“Well, tuck in then,” Balin said cheerfully, pushing a bowl and a spoon before him.

He did. They all did. Smirking smugly, Balin dedicated himself to his own nourishment (Fili had seen to it; the lad showed an ability to foresee and foreplan, certainly a commendable trait for a future king). For a while, the only sound at their table was eager munching and the occasional clack of a spoon against an earthenware bowl. Dwarves were hearty eaters even at the best of times, and apparently the man had no problem holding his own among them, the way he was methodically devouring a proper dwarf-sized portion.

“Slow down, laddie,” Oin said, “else you’ll make yourself sick, especially if you haven’t had much in your stomach for a while.”

“Won’t happen, with my metabolism,” Cody muttered between mouthfuls. Then, apparently not wanting to be rude – or perhaps with the worst hunger sated – he added, “But I do thank you for your concern. And, er, for food.” He looked at Balin. “Afraid I haven’t been the dazzling companion you expected.”

“Want any seconds?” Fili offered.

“Ah… Would be grateful, sir.”

“Sir! He called him sir!” Kili snickered to Gloin, who elbowed him.

***

Balin and Thorin were leaning back in their seats, observing the man as he cleaned out his third bowl.

“A criminal?” Thorin signalled in Iglishmek.

“Maybe not, no deceit,” Balin answered. He had to be careful, for unlike Thorin, he was sitting right beside Cody, so he had to try to disguise the gestures in a flurry of other movements like trying to find a more comfortable position and looking for his pipe.

Dwalin slid a finger over his bushy eyebrow, signalling that he would rather keep an eye on the man.

Slowly, Thorin let his gaze travel over the others. They looked wordlessly back, willing to back him, trusting him to make the right decisions. Would the Company continue without a fourteenth man, and invite all the bad luck that their number would bring with it, or would they trust a stranger among them? Men were fickle, and easily bought, but men were also eager to prove themselves both in battle and in loyalty, and if their quest succeeded, there were few who could outbid what the King Under the Mountain would be able to offer.

“Fourteen,” Thorin gestured.

Cody had occasionally peered up from under his eyebrows, but did not say anything until he had licked the last remnants of stew off his spoon. He burped blissfully (earning an approving glance from Fili and Kili as well as from Dwalin – at which Balin frowned, his brother should know better), staring at the ceiling.

“The moment of truth, then,” he finally said lightly. “Who do I have to kill for you?”

Oin choked on his pipe, Thorin frowned, Dwalin and Gloin took a moment to gape and then laughed uproariously.

“Why would you think we want you to kill someone?” Balin asked mildly.

Cody shrugged. “The question was partly metaphorical, sir – but you were also discussing something and came to an agreement. And, why else would someone pick up a lonely clone soldier in an inn in the middle of nowhere?”

_Ah_ , Balin thought, _observant_.

Kili shrugged. “A soldier then. Dandy. Perhaps we can find someone for you to kill. You see, there’s this dragon…”

Oin had another coughing fit and Fili whacked his brother upside the head. The man, however, didn’t bat an eyelash. He leaned forward, suddenly all professional.

“You want me to kill a dragon for you? What kind?”

There was a surprised silence around the table. Finally, Dwalin snorted disgustedly. “And you think you’re the man to do that.”

“No idea,” Cody said mildly. “I would need more information. What size, what speed, endurance, what level of intelligence, what’s needed to penetrate its shell, how much of a punch he packs – well, that sort of thing.” He stared right back at Dwalin.

“Big,” the tattooed Dwarf said challengingly. “Huge. _Enormous_. Tall as treetops, and long as a river. Like nothing you’ve seen. Faster than falcons. Strong enough to break through dwarvish gates. And then, there’s the tiny problem of fiery breath. Think you can take him on?”

Cody shrugged. “He breathes fire then? At what temperatures? And what’s his blasting range? The duration of a blast? What’s the mechanism – does he spray an inflammable liquid, or gas, or – or plasma perhaps?”

“Plaz-what?” Gloin huffed in annoyance. “What are you babbling about? Do you think we stood around waiting to see how much fire he could create?”

“You asked me if I could kill one,” Cody said flatly. “I think it reasonable to find out as much as I can, before I answer your question.”

Gloin huffed again. “It’s a _fire_ -drake, so the fire is exactly as hot and destructive as _dragonfire_ , I should think.”

But the disdain gradually disappeared from Dwalin’s face, and he looked at Balin, with some surprise, hesitation, and a look that said, _This man is serious?_ A similar look was on Fili’s face, and Oin and Thorin too looked thoughtful.

“You _do_ think you have a chance,” Thorin said slowly. “Why? Have you done that before?”

“I’m still not sure what kind of beast is this dragon,” Cody admitted, caressing his fingers over an odd, clunky item that was lying in his lap. ( _Ah, Balin was right, a honest one_ , Thorin thought.) “I’ve seen huge creatures brought down with enough firepower. I’ve yet to see a creature who cannot be defeated by any means. The question is, how much is enough? What is needed to achieve that?”

“You’re right,” Thorin said. “However, we have sadly no answer to your questions.”

Balin slapped his palms on the tabletop. “Never mind, lad. Kili was just teasing. Though, if you happen to be looking for, say, an _adventure_ …”

“ _Adventure_ ,” he said suspiciously.

“Well, let us say, a hard travel, wrought with unknown perils and an uncertain outcome, but with a possibility of a sizable reward in gold at the end,” the old Dwarf explained.

“And the dragon,” the man inserted.

“Aye, and the dragon.”

“Then you could be our lucky number fourteen.”

The man hmm’ed noncommittally. For a few heartbeats, both parties stared at each other wordlessly.

“We’d feed you…” Fili offered.

“If we happen to have food,” Dwalin put in gloomily.

That made Fili and Kili giggle. “Oh aye, but we do promise to share. And free beer.”

“Well, you certainly know how to convince a body,” the man finally said drolly.

“You’re on then, lad?”

“Why not.” And he and Balin – and then Thorin – shook their hands on it.

“Oi, man, bring some beer fer all of us!” Gloin yelled to the innkeeper, and the Dwarves greeted it enthusiastically.

***

Cody was immediately crowded in by the two youngest Dwarves. “Fili, and Kili, at your service. And that lug there’s Dwalin, and Thorin, and Gloin, and Oin, and at that table over there, hey, lads, wave and nod to us, won’t you – there’s Dori, Nori, Bofur, Bombur, oi, Bombur, get these noodles out of your beard, that looks disgusting – and then there’s Bifur, and Ori,” they rattled. “And this one here’s Kodi, our lucky number fourteen!”

“That’s a proper dwarvish name, that is, Kodi,” the one called Bofur praised.

“See? They like you,” Kili thumped him on the shoulder. An odd, dull _thwack_ sounded, nothing you could expect from any proper armour. Several eyes turned to him, curiously.

“Say, what’s this?” Gloin asked. “That’s no metal.”

“Plasteel—”

“What’s it made of? I wonder how strong it is? Does it resist arrows? It’s amazingly light, but also very thin, I don’t think it’ll resist much. Do you think we could make something like that?” Curious fingers poked and prodded him.

Cody didn’t seem to get a word in edgewise, so he alternated between bemused glances at his newfound companions and hesitant ones at the mug of beer that had mysteriously appeared in his hand. Finally he buried his nose in the latter, while the questioning went on, showing no signs of slowing down. “Is your sword made of the same material? Where _is_ your sword? What, no sword at all? I can give you one of mine, until we get to someplace where we can acquire one for you. Can you use a sword? What’s a vib-… virbo… ? What do you mean blasters? Why can’t you show us in here?”

 


	4. Chapter 4

The first day of travel took the company no further than to Bree. The skies had cleared up and although it was not overly warm, a merry sun had begun to dry the soggy road. Unanimously, the dwarves declared it an excellent omen, resulting from the fact that their company no longer had the unlucky number of members.

Cody was the sole footman of the company. The pony they had originally acquired for Bilbo Baggins and that, when the hobbit had failed to turn up, had been loaded with packs, was definitely too small for Cody: his heels would have brushed the ground, and his heavy muscled and armoured body would run the risk of breaking the poor creature’s back. So he had the pleasure of walking while others rode; although, Thorin had promised to acquire a suitable mount for him in Bree. Cody didn’t care either way: in truth, with his trained, easy loping clone-gait he could easily keep up without being winded in the slightest. He did appreciate the thought, though.

He walked alone. Thorin rode ahead of the line with a tall, bearded and pointy-hatted man who had turned up in the morning when they set out, someone who was called either Tharkun or Gandalf, Cody wasn’t sure which; and the rest of the company followed in a line of ones and twos. None chose to come over for a chat, and Cody didn’t feel exactly inclined, either. After all, this world was so very different and very strange in his eyes, what would they really have in common to talk about?

Cody caught snatches of quiet chatter in a strange language, but didn’t think much of it. It was rather common of other races to have their own language besides Basic. So he just strode, letting his own thoughts run where they would, on his brothers, on Rex, on other things, and letting the easy rhythm of his strides rock his body gently, lulling him in a sort of alert meditative state in which clones could easily cover miles and miles tirelessly and swiftly.

In Bree Thorin decided to stop for a short while, to replenish their stocks. Cody soon learned that it did not mean just buying what you needed. No; apparently there was a whole science to it. All dwarves were carrying small odds and ends with them, knives and clasps and small precious stones that would be sold or bartered on local markets, and judging from what he heard from Oin, Gloin and Dori, you had to know what to put to sale where, and at what prices. Also, he soon learned that another part of the dwarves’ usual _modus operandi_ was to rent workspace in the local smithy to offer their services and earn some coin. It seemed that dwarven work was highly prized in these lands, and all dwarves with almost no exception knew something of the art of working metal and stone, so they were greeted with some enthusiasm.

Thorin took rooms in the Prancing Pony – mostly because it catered for both the Big Folk and the Little Folk. They had several rooms for the dwarves, but Cody had to make do with a bed in one of the bigger, shared sleeping rooms meant for Men. He didn’t mind though, it looked all reasonably clean, and though the room had six beds, he currently appeared to have only had one other roommate, so it wasn’t too bad.

The first thing he did, he cleaned and oiled his blaster, and took stock of what he had. His most immediate concern was that, not knowing how long he would be stuck in this world, the compressed tibanna cartridges of his blaster were becoming a limited commodity. Luckily, he had some fully charged spare cartridges, and the one currently in his blaster was at over 80 per cent – he hadn’t fired a shot since he’d found himself in this strange, backward, fairy-tale world. Three cartridges out of five, stupidly he had not replaced the two empty ones before setting out with his unit – but no use crying over spilt milk now. Nevertheless, as he was now on some kind of a dangerous military mission to kill a large, very likely lethal creature of uncertain description, he might have to start thinking on some kind of weaponry that was more sustainable in this environment. A sword, possibly, because it was not unlike a long vibro-knife, with which he had reasonable experience. Or possibly an axe? It appeared to be the favoured weapon of Dwarves – he had noticed several of his companions have one or even several of those. And, an axe could be a powerful and effective weapon in the hands of one who could wield it well – such as a well-trained clone commander, for example.

He peeled off his armour and cleaned it with a wet rag, then cleaned himself as well as he could, with a washcloth over the washstand in the corner of the room. His bodysuit was undeniably whiffy, so he washed it, too, as well as he could, and left it to dry over the headboard of his bed. Luckily, he had a full kit with him, which included a spare bodysuit, which he pulled on.

Just as he was prepared to go downstairs into the taproom to hopefully find his companions, there was a knock on the door, and one of his dwarves walked in. The quiet, polite, silver-haired one with lots of braids. Cody hadn’t yet spoken with that one, but his nearly perfect clone memory easily supplied a name: Dori.

“Good evening, Kodi. I came to see if you wanted to join us in the pub, or perhaps I can bring you something here—Ah. Please excuse me.” Shading his eyes with one hand, he turned away. “I didn’t know... Anyway. I’ll come back later then.”

“Er, sorry – what? Why later?” Cody was honestly flummoxed. “I am ready to go.”

“Uh, forgive me, I thought you’d need to... You know.” Dori made a vague gesture down his torso.

“I need to what? Wash?”

“No. You know –“ Dori waved his hands, and finally stage-whispered. “Get dressed.”

“Dressed? I _am_ dressed.” Cody shook his head in bafflement. What did that mean? Perhaps he was meant to have his dress uniform on? Was it the norm here to dress up for the evening meal? He had read about such things, but the simple truth was, he didn’t have his dress uniform with him.

“Oh...” The hand was dropped, but as soon as the dwarf looked at him, he immediately lowered his eyes again. “Ah,” came another meaningful comment. Cody frowned when Dori stepped to the door, peered out cautiously, and then closed the door with a click, leaning against it. He scratched his beard, fidgeted, and still didn’t seem to be able to look at him.

“Kodi, forgive me, but... Is that what you would wear normally?”

Cody shook his head. “In my free time, yes. Otherwise, normally I would be in my armour.”

“I see.” Once again he scratched his head, and repeated, “I see. Well.” Then he seemed to come to a decision. “Nothing for it, then. I’ll be back in just a moment. Wait here.” And disappearing through the door, he cautioned: “And don’t you dare put your nose out of this room while I’m gone!”

***

“It’s a bloody dress! A women’s garment!” Cody exclaimed, turning the thing in his hand this way and that. It was a simple thing, obviously made for Men, a sleeveless dress... shirt... thing (Dori had called it “tunnick”) with split sides for ease of movement.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Kodi – why would I procure women’s garments for you, when you so obviously aren’t one?” was Dori’s calm reply.

“Oh, I don’t know – to make fun of me?”

“Oh, enough of your yammering – put it on, and we can go down for supper! The rest are already there, and by the way they’ve been going on, there won’t be anything left for us if you don’t hurry.”

Cody huffed and cautiously pulled the thing over his head. Apparently Dori had misjudged his size – while he seemed to be almost a head taller than the average man in this village, this piece of clothing seemed to have been made for someone with a wider frame. It hung from his shoulders much like a nightshirt, with his arms and legs, dressed in his charcoal standard-issue bodysuit as they were, sticking out.

The dwarf eyed his knobby knees critically. “It’s a bit short, I suppose,” he admitted. “But at least your backside isn’t showing.”

“Short? It’s bloody _wide_! With the least bit of wind, my backside _will_ be showing!”

“Codswallop!” Dori fussed over him, trying to arrange the garment, plucking here and pulling there. “That’ll have to do. You’ll wear a belt on it, of course. It’s also meant to go over armour. Now, hop to, young man, we’ll want our supper sometime today!”

Cody picked up his white, segmented, hi-tech magnetic belt that carried clips for most of his kit and contained controls for air, temperature and power systems of his full bodysuit-armour protective system. He eyed his medieval garment suspiciously, but then shrugged – when in Ryloth, do as the Twi’leks do, and all that. After all, supper was waiting, and hadn’t Fili promised him free beer?

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many Jedi obviously wear items called tunics. I don't see, however, how it is Cody's business to know what the Jedi wear. Or maybe, considering that neither speak actually English -- Cody speaks Basic and the nasty little dwarrowses speak Westron -- maybe the word is just different in each of these languages.


	5. Bree

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the slaughter of the Khuzdul language.

The next day, Cody trailed after those of the dwarves who headed to the smithy. When he had been asked in the morning, which of the tasks he would prefer, the smithy or negotiating for provisions in the market, he had shrugged and said, wherever they thought he was most useful, upon which Thorin had simply commanded, “Come then.” His admission that he really had never seen a blacksmith at work raised some disbelieving eyebrows, but Nori shrugged and said, “Well, I suppose with your arms and your height, you can work the big bellows with the best of them.”

So Cody got a leather apron that he tied over his dress-thingy... erm, “toonick”, and the morning passed with him hauling the bellows.

The dwarves were actually working on several anvils. Bifur, Thorin and Ori were hammering away on a bigger one, in perfect synchronised movements of their well-muscled arms. They had rolled up their sleeves, Thorin even thrown off his shirt, so that his upper body was only covered by his leather apron, and sweat was beading on their foreheads, leaving shiny tracks on their sooty faces and bodies, as their big, heavy hammers fell rhythmically in a circle like a pecking-chickens toy. Cody marvelled that even little Ori could swing the huge hammer like nobody’s business, just as easily as Thorin and Bifur did; but he was given little time to stare, as time and again Thorin bellowed, “Heat up!” and then Cody hauled away for the life of him, while the dwarves scrambled to lift the piece to heat.

The human blacksmith, owner of the forge, was also present, together with a pimply young apprentice, and occasionally Cody had to work the bellows for them too, so he had barely time for a proper breather.

A long table, scattered with all sorts of tools, was given to Oin and Nori who worked on small items, repairing clocks and watches, setting loose gems, replacing lost catches and pins, sharpening knives and the like, with Fili acting as their errand boy-receptionist-jack-of-all-trades.

Some time after lunch the work on the big chunk of metal let up a bit. Thorin and Ori went on working, but Cody was finally told to rest a bit, before he would be needed again for the next part.

Feeling sweaty all over, thirsty and hot, Cody took a moment to step outside from the fiery, sweaty hell that was the forge. He saw Bifur by the water trough, pouring a pail of water over his head, and he decided to take his example. Then he wandered around the corner in search if some shade, and crouched down, leaning his back against the smithy’s wall. He closed his eyes. Droplets of water ran from his hair over his face, and he tried to rearrange it. They were not long enough to stay over the head or behind his ear, and yet long enough to fall irritatingly over his forehead. He muttered curses, as he once again tried to push a lock aside, and scratched his chin.

After a moment, he heard footsteps, and Bifur crouched down beside him, offering a mug of ale.

“Thanks,” he said, drinking deeply, and then handing the mug back. In companionable silence they emptied it quickly and then just sat, staring at the early summer clouds.

“I’ve really no idea what it was you and the others did in the forge,” Cody admitted, “but you work real good together.”

Bifur hummed in agreement.

“Never actually seen a smith at work,” Cody went on. “Didn’t imagine you’d work so fast. And Ori seems so very young. I can’t imagine he’s been working long with you?”

“Kanon,” the dwarf croaked, shaking his head.

“Well, that was something to behold,” praised Cody.

Bifur nodded his thanks, and his fingers flew in some signs that meant nothing to Cody. He seemed to pull himself together for a few moments. “Khazâd,” he said in his raspy voice, but with great solemnity. “Gabil-khebabâlh. Akhûnaz atrev umamu.” He nodded slowly, as if to confirm his words.

“Yeah...” Cody sighed. “Impressive.” He suddenly felt the need to explain, “You see, we have it all done by machines. Very fast, very precise, very complicated...”

Bifur stared at him, saying something, curiosity clear in his eyes and in his intonation, so Cody felt compelled to admit, “I’ve no idea how. I’ve never seen that either.” He shrugged, and for a time they once again just sat and stared at the clouds.

They were brought out of their reverie when Bofur suddenly appeared from behind the corner. “You’d better come,” he said by way of greeting.

***

At the front yard before the smithy Balin was just explaining Thorin: “A woman has been saying that her brooch was stolen. She accuses us. Apparently the sentiment here is that dwarves are like magpies for gold and silver.”

Thorin sighed. “That is certainly no news,” he said bitterly.

“Aye. But now, she says, with us travelling with a criminal...”

They both looked towards the forge, where Oin and Nori could be seen sitting by the window, working diligently.

“...No,” said Thorin. “He’s been here the whole time.”

“I think,” Balin’s voice sank to a whisper, “I think they may mean Kodi.”

They both looked up at the approaching clone. “Ridiculous,” Thorin shook his head. “He’s been here the whole time, too.”

As Bifur, Bofur and Cody approached, Balin explained the situation in a few words. “Ye see, laddie,” he said in a kindly voice, “shorn hair often being the sign of a criminal, I must ask why you wear it so. Can the people of Bree have any real grievance against you?”

“No!” Cody gasped in shock. Then, gathering his wits, he said forcefully: “I swear to you, Mr Thorin, Mr Balin – I’ve never committed any crime, not here in Bree, nor elsewhere. I’ve never even been in Bree before.”

“I trust your word,” Thorin said without hesitation, but his frown did not disappear. “We may be facing some trouble from the locals. So be on your lookout. You too,” he said to the rest of the dwarves around him.

“Even without the locals, our real problem at the moment is Butterbur,” Bofur put in. “He says he will not take the risk, and that we better pack up before evening.”

Thorin swore in Khuzdul. “Our time of begging is over,” he then declared proudly. “Dwarvish work is without compare; if they do not treat us with respect, they shall have to do with their own shoddy, cheap trash. Bring Nori and Oin.”

***

They were right: the village was stirred up like a beehive. They collected their comrades and any finished work not yet paid for, which they were planning to confiscate for payment (the thought made Cody somewhat uneasy, but he had been trained not to question orders), and moved towards the Prancing Pony in a tight formation. The villagers they encountered cursed and spat at them and told them to get out. Luckily, they were not hit by any stones yet, but a few pieces of ordure seemed to be making their way towards them.

Arrived at the inn, Cody armoured up fast – pulling on his shirt above all, to spare at least Dori’s delicate sensibilities – and found the dwarves in their rooms, buzzing with indignation.

“We haven’t even acquired everything we needed!” Bombur was complaining. “We’ll be short of food, unless we manage to acquire some on the way – which is not looking very likely!”

“What’s worse,” Gloin and Kili announced as they arrived, “I’ve just come from some of the merchants. Now they are refusing to hand over the supplies we’ve already paid for.”

That announcement was greeted with loud angry protests.

“I say we pay them a visit,” Dwalin growled, caressing his axes.

“I don’t want to start a war,” Thorin cautioned them. “Nor do I want you locked up. Remember, we have a mission, and we’re only fourteen against a whole village.”

“Where’s the damn wizard when you need him?”

“Oh, he’s conveniently away, as always.”

“We won’t be starting a war, uncle,” Fili said, “but we do need those provisions. I’d go to collect them – with your permission, of course. I’d have Dwalin with me, if he agrees, and Dori, perhaps?” Both dwarves agreed immediately. 

“Be careful,” Thorin cautioned. “We’ll saddle the ponies and take your bags, and start moving out of the village. Catch us as soon as you can. And, for Mahal’s sake, Dwalin – don’t start anything!”

 “Gentlemen – sorry, gentledwarves,” Cody spoke up, grinning, “remember, you now have a terrible ‘criminal’ in your pocket. I’d come with the retrieval team, if you will have me.” And he sat his orange-striped Phase 2 helmet on his head with a thwack, and readied his blaster.

There were a few round eyes, but Thorin said briskly: “Very well. Let’s move, all!” But the corners of his mouth twitched slightly.

***

In the end, the “retrieval team,” as Cody had called it, did not start a war, and caught the rest of the company very quickly, loaded with a sack of salted pork, two sacks of flour, an armful (literally, in Fili’s case) of smoked sausages, a ring of onions, and high tales about what the merchants’ faces had looked like when such a terrifying company had appeared at their doorsteps. They were greeted with cheer as victors, and despite the company being thrown out of the village of Bree and losing much of the pay for their work besides, they continued their journey quite joyfully.

And Nori got to keep a set of twelve silver spoons inlaid with turquoise, as their owner had not managed to pick them up before the dwarves left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Incidentally, Daughter pointed out to me that as Bifur has the axe in his left frontal lobe, and said that a trauma there can cause aphasia. I'd rather not try to verify that; however, it kinda suits, doesn't it. Not that this has anything to do with my story. LOL.


	6. Companions

Cody didn’t know what to make of Gandalf (and yes, he had cleared up the matter of his name; when he had asked Nori, the dwarf had looked at him strangely and told him to simply stick to Gandalf). When the grey old man had once again caught up with the company, he had brought a horse for Cody, so he didn’t have to walk any longer. On the other hand, he didn’t seem to trust him. He was also trying to bring Thorin and Balin around to his point of view. 

Nor did he seem to like Cody – or, at least, treat him with the same easy, friendly indifference as the dwarves mostly seemed to do. He usually rode at the head of their train with Thorin and Balin, and Cody was very much aware that sometimes their talk concerned him, the way they kept throwing glances his way.

 “The wyrm is certainly well acquainted with the scent of Men,” was one of the phrases he overheard once when his mount had wandered too close to the head of their caravan. He had no idea what to make of it. Scent? They operated on scent in this world? 

At that point, Dwalin nudged his pony closer, and Cody knew well enough to take the hint. Rolling his eyes, he reined in his beast to drop behind.

Gandalf, however, seemed determined to seek his own intelligence. During one of their lunch breaks he sidled up to where Cody was sitting on a fallen tree trunk, puffing his pipe as he often did. 

Silently, Cody made room for him, but continued eating his stew without even a glance at the other.

“So, Kodi – your name is Kodi, isn’t it?”

Cody chewed and swallowed before answering, “Cody. Yes, that’s what I call myself.”

Gandalf’s eyebrows crept up. “But it is not what your parents named you?”

“Why to you want to know?”

“Indulge an old man’s curiosity,” Gandalf shrugged easily.

Cody caught a twinkling but sharp glance from the old man. The feeling of being questioned by the old man was, strangely, not unlike some of his interactions with the Jedi Generals – it seemed as if the tiniest twitches of his muscles were being registered and evaluated, even his very thoughts being sifted through. Dealing with Gandalf was not unlike dealing with General Yoda, even though this Gandalf was not as warm-hearted as the funny little green General had been with him and his brothers. 

Cody huffed a laugh, saying just, “I have no parents.”

“That does not answer my question,” Gandalf observed.

“No, it does not,” Cody agreed affably.

***

Of the rest of the company, he thought he liked best Balin, who had been the first dwarf to speak to him and offer him a warm meal. The old dwarf often had a kind word to him, even if it was just a smile and thank-you, and he called him laddie – well, he called everybody laddie, even Thorin. Gandalf seemed to be the only exception. Come to think of it, Balin didn’t seem to call Gandalf much of anything.

He told nice stories too. Even though Cody wasn’t entirely sure that it wasn’t some sort of hero worship speaking in the old dwarf, when he claimed that Thorin had more reason than many to hate Orcs. At least Balin’s story inspired the company. Deep inside he had to admit, it inspired Cody too. He, too, knew one whom he would have wanted to follow. Unfortunately, he had ordered the man shot down instead. Cody preferred not to dwell on that, and when Balin passed him, smiling and asking, “All right, lad?” he smiled back.

In contrast, Dwalin didn’t seem to be very talkative. On the other hand, it was Dwalin who gave him a thin blanket to use as a bedroll. He also offered a cloak, but Cody refused, not seeing a use for such an item when his own armour’s temperature controls could keep him reasonably warm under any conditions. 

Dwalin was also the one with whom Cody thought he had the most in common. When they were setting up camp, they both seemed to evaluate their campsites, looking for weaknesses, and find the best spots where to place the watch so that nothing would surprise them during the night. He was focused on the mission, on their success, on the brothers... er, the company. Cody found he understood, and appreciated, this kind of attitude.

Dwalin’s communication with him mostly consisted of grunts, nods and the occasional bowl of stew. Cody was familiar with that, and he thought that okay.

***

Bofur, Ori and Nori were usually the best company. They were friendly and included him in their talks; and by extension, so did their families. Bifur tended to get into his personal space and wave his arms around a lot when he tried to explain something, but mostly Cody didn’t mind. 

One afternoon, about a week after Bree, when Cody had already a pretty clear idea why this dragon creature could easily smell a dwarf (although he was certain that his own current aroma didn’t fall that far from dwarvish), he was riding between Bofur, Nori and Dori, and Bombur and Bifur were riding before them, the former eating as he often did, the latter once again talking in his usual arm-waving style. Observing the axe-headed dwarf, Cody asked, “Tell me, boys, what does it mean, _k_ _azad-g_ _abil-kebabal_?”

Bombur choked on his snack, Dori squeaked, and Bofur nearly fell off his saddle. “Where did you learn that?” he demanded when he had righted himself.

“Bifur said it,” Cody admitted with a shrug. “Back there, in that village before we were thrown out.”

“He shouldn’t have!” Dori tutted irritably. “He shouldn’t teach these things in the presence of...“ 

“Uh, he wasn’t teaching, he was just speaking, and I kind of remember these things, and I do not see what the fuss is about?”

“This was our language, dwarven language, called Khuzdul,” Nori explained. “Your pronunciation could use some work, but the meaning was recognisable enough.”

“Nori!” Dori tried to hit him across the back of his head, but the wily dwarf dodged and just laughed at him. 

“It’s just that,” Ori piped up from behind, “this is normally not meant for the ears of non-dwarves.”

“Ori!”

“Now, Dori,” Bofur tried to be reasonable, but there was an edge of anger in his voice. “You know very well that Bifur can’t speak any other language. Would you have him be forbidden to speak at all?”

“No, of course not, but it’s...”

“I will not have you disrespect my cousin.”

“I swear, I meant no disrespect to Bifur, and I’m sure I regret his, er, disease, um, condition...” Dori made placating gestures with his arms. “But you all know very well, how he is. Why can’t he speak to one of you, and then have you translate...”

The axe-headed dwarf, meanwhile, had approached their group, and now muscled in with rapid-fire Khuzdul, waving his arms frantically.

“Now you’ve done it, Dori,” Bofur grumbled. “Bombur, will you go and try to get him to calm down? And Dori, we _will_ be having words about it, do not doubt!”

Dori looked around uneasily, hating the thought of something as unpleasant as a quarrel within the company, but equally unwilling to let go of traditions. Cody observed it all bemusedly.

“It’s okay,” Cody soothed, “I’ll not say it again, now that I know it’s a secret language.”

“No, I’ll tell you,” Nori grinned from his other side, apparently wanting to show his annoying elder brother his place. Of course he knew which buttons to press to get a reaction. “I’ll tell you what it means!”

“Nori!!!” Dori manoeuvred to shut him up.

“It means, Dwarves are great masters!” Nori shouted, again slipping away from the punishing hand of his brother. “And he was right!” he yelled over his shoulder and spurred on his pony, as Dori gave chase, brandishing a wooden spoon and yelling at his brother to stop and face it like a man. 

“What I would like to know,” Bofur said as they looked at the antics of the two, “is how you remembered that. It’s been several days now.”

Before Cody could answer, Ori squealed in delight, “I know, I know! It must be Perfect Recall! I’ve read about it. You take just one look at a book, and afterwards you can recite it perfectly. Oh, I wish I had a memory like that!”

Cody chuckled but didn’t want to correct Ori. 

By now, of course, all the commotion had caught the attention of the front of their pony train. 

“What is the meaning of this?” Thorin roared.

“Cody spoke Khuzdul,” Bofur informed him with his usual cheer. 

“ _What_?”

“He can memorise things,” Ori gushed. “Bifur spoke to him in Bree, and he just repeated it. Isn’t that absolutely _wonderful_?”

Thorin rolled his eyes. “Very well. We shall make camp. Bofur, go and see to your cousin, as we need Bombur to start supper for us. And you,” he glared at Cody, “try not to upset the company if you can help it.” 

“Yes, sir.” 

***

Oin and Gloin... Well, it was evident that these two were brothers. If not from anything else, then from the way they kept bickering with each other. They could bicker about anything and everything, and there didn’t seem to be a topic in existence upon which the two would agree. One moment it could be Gloin’s most amazing young son, then whether it would rain tomorrow, or which dwarf was the best master in a particular field. Cody usually tried to stay away from them, to avoid getting between their spats.

They camped near a stream, and Cody decided to do something about the ridiculous thicket that was by now covering his head and face. He rummaged in his kit for the standard-issue razor that every clone had, and asked Oin for a piece of soap, for the old dwarf always had some about. 

As he let the razor slide across his skin, years of experience allowing him to do a more or less passable job even without a mirror, he didn’t at first notice the shocked hush that had descended upon his companions.

“What... Mahal, Kodi, what are you doing? Why?” It was the utter horror in Gloin’s voice, more than anything else, that made Cody turn in surprise. 

“Shaving, obviously – why?”

“But you... You don’t have to do that! Whatever the reason you were shaved, you needn’t do so now!”

“Thorin himself said you were no felon, and we believe him. Nobody here cares!”

Cody frowned. He did not understand what the dwarves were on about. “It is common sense,” he explained. Hair was, you might say, a liability, at least that’s what his training said. “You might also consider it, at least when on a campaign,” he offered, trying to be friendly.

There were cries of outrage and disbelief. 

Gloin walked up to him, looming over where he was kneeling by the water. “You take that back!”

“You’re on a quest against a fire-breathing creature. Hair is the first to burn. Besides,” he walked over to Oin and grabbed the long hair at the back of his head, pulling his chin up and setting his razor against the dwarf’s unprotected neck. “Hair can be used against you in battle,” he said.

Oin stiffened in surprise, and Gloin shouted angrily, grasping his axe. “Let go of my brother,” he snarled. “And don’t touch his hair! Or I will have your fingers!”

“Okay, okay!” Cody stepped back quickly, raising his hands. “Peace! I meant no harm. You asked!”

“You’re mad,” Oin stated. “Shaving, indeed. Absolutely mad!” Gloin nodded energetically in agreement.

Ruffled, Oin spent a few moments setting his hair to rights, while Gloin kept an eye on Cody and a hand on his axe, as if he was some rabid wild beast.

“Completely crazy,” Oin continued his muttered diatribe. “Barmy as an elf!”

“Yeah, brother, I hear you,” was Gloin’s comment as they finally turned and walked back to the camp, leaving Cody to stare after them. “Completely bats!”

Cody straightened himself slowly and shrugged. “Well, there is also the question of lice...”

Balin, who had appeared with a bundle of dirty clothes sometime during their discussion, shook his head. “Shaving, indeed,” he said disdainfully, but then patted Cody comfortingly on the shoulder. “No matter, laddie. Give it time. Who knows, perhaps we’ll make a proper dwarf out of you yet.” They both laughed, and Cody didn’t really mind that from then on, it was rather Oin and Gloin who seemed to be avoiding Cody.

At least they were in agreement over that.

 


	7. The Bucket Incident

Cody no longer wondered how the dragon creature would know the dwarves’ presence by smell. By now, even he would most probably be able follow them blindly, just by nose. Not that he smelled much better, he supposed. Cautiously he sniffed his armpit and wrinkled his nose.

Sighing, he brought his attention back to the work at hand. Somewhere along the way he had torn a rip into his tunic, and Ori had given him thread and a needle, and now he was trying to work out the mechanics of sewing. When he had seen Ori (and Dori, and Bofur) do it, it hadn’t seemed so very complicated, but in his hands, the thread kept developing all sorts of knots and tangles.

Maybe it had something to do with the thread.

He undid yet another tangle and tried to concentrate on the stitches, the tip of his tongue sticking out.

The next moment wet hands patted his shaved head, as double footsteps ran around him.

“Kodi is an egghead, Kodi is an egghead!” Fili and Kili danced away, laughing, when he tried to swat them.

“Get lost, pests,” he growled.

“Are you sure your head will not be mistaken for another sun, the way it shines?” Kili sing-songed over his shoulder. Cody swung up with the hand holding the needle. True, the gesture was half-hearted: he did not really want to hit the young dwarf but, truth to be told, it was getting rather old. Kili, however, just ducked away and laughed.

“His face shines so bright, it’s beardless and white, and his— bwww! Bleargh!!“

This time his needle-less aim was better, and Fili was lying face down in the mud, Cody’s arm keeping him there. “I said, quit it.” As he let the dwarf go, Fili straightened, wiping his face and grumbling, especially when he was greeted with laughter by the rest of the company.

“Now, Kili,” Cody glared at the dark-haired mischief-maker – and right on time.

There were dirty fingers sneaking towards his blaster that was lying on the grass beside his backpack. Cody put a foot on it, to prevent it from taking an unwanted walk. Not that he was afraid of something happening – for the moment, the power cartridge was disengaged, so Cody thought the worst that could happen was that the dwarf would perhaps try to use it as a hammer and someone would get a nasty bruise. However, it was better for the pair of monkeys not to get any ideas.

Seeing his ploy was discovered, Kili stared up at Cody with a pair of perfectly innocent eyes. Cody just raised an eyebrow, and then very deliberately looked at the pool of mud that had just a few moments earlier housed Fili. “Are you sure you want to try?”

“No, Mr Kodi! We’ll be good, Mr Kodi! _Sir_!”

“Aye, ain’t that the truth,” Bofur smirked as he plopped down hear Cody, a bowl of stew in his hand, and settled down to eat. “Naughty boys get your own supper,” he snapped at the two young dwarves who immediately wanted to confiscate it. “Shoo!”

“Aww, you don’t like us...” Fili and Kili grumbled, but then put their heads together over sorting something in their luggage.

Sighing, Cody took up his handiwork again. He threw a suspicious look at the two troublemakers, but for the moment they truly appeared busy with their own things, so he picked up the needle. He stuck it carefully through the fabric, pulled the thread, trying to make sure that it would not knot, and smiled in satisfaction. There! Five more stitches like that—

And he discovered that he had sewed both sides of the garment together.

He cursed long in Mando’a. As in all things (with the apparent exception of sewing), Cody had ever been a good learner, and among training sergeants, curses had oft flown freely. From the way Bofur was sniggering beside him, he supposed no translation was really needed. He threw the dwarf a venomous glare, but the miner just grinned sunnily and nodded for him to go on with his work. With an even deeper and more heartfelt sigh Cody began to undo his Five Perfect Stitches.

It was then when he saw, from the corner of his eye, Fili move. It was just a fidget, but Cody noticed that somehow the golden-haired dwarf ended up a fraction closer to the blaster that was lying on the ground together with the rest of his kit. Cody gave a meaningful cough and Fili subsided. But the next moment, his eyes moved once again to the blaster; then darted away as he noticed Cody’s gaze. As the manoeuvre was repeated, Cody’s patience ran out. Growling, he set down his stitching... and only then noticed that his helmet had, in fact, taken a walk.

As he around for the two most likely culprits, indeed he saw his white-orange-and-gold bucket weaving through their campsite, to the cheer and laughter of all the dwarves. Bofur, of course, roared with laughter beside him.

“You knew!” He pointed an accusing finger at the dwarf. “You bloody knew!”

“Of course I knew! I saw it, didn’t I?” Bofur guffawed. “Admit it, Kodi, you are no match for these two!”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Cody shook his head. “I’m sure Kili’ll get his just deserts, any moment now.”

Meanwhile, Kili was dancing around, holding the helmet aloft. “Look what I found!” he shouted, “a mysterious, secret, egghead helmet thing!”

“Well what are you waiting for, lad, try it on!” Gloin egged him on. “Maybe I could even be convinced to try a proper headbutt with you.”

“Yeah, let’s!” Crowing victoriously, Kili did.

Cody had some idea what the young dwarf would be experiencing. All clones went through more or less the same thing during their training. It would take time to get used to the abundance of information fed to the heads-up display, and the worst thing probably was the 360-degree visual. Every clone had experienced dizziness and headaches when they first started to learn to use their HUDs. Moreover, it took a year to learn to drive the HUD properly, as it reacted to eye commands, and uncoordinated use would make the experience even worse.

As said, naughty dwarves would get their punishment.

 

In but a few seconds, Kili’s trajectory had considerably deviated from a direct line, bumping into several other dwarves, who pushed him back good-naturedly. He turned his head this way and that, waving his arms uncoordinatedly, like a blind man trying to feel what is around him. “Woah, wooah,” he exclaimed, stumbling sideways as if drunk and spinning in circles. His triumphant yells reverted to sounds of confusion, and finally he stumbled over his own feet, falling on all fours. “Oh hairy Mahal,” he groaned deeply, grabbed the helmet off his head and retched.

“Kili!” With a shout, Fili was at his brother’s side, wrapping arms around him. “What did you do to him?” he screamed, looking up at Cody.

From the corner of his eye he saw Thorin and Gandalf rise, and Dwalin’s hand move towards his axes. “Nothing wrong with him but for some dizziness,” he explained. “Should pass in a minute.” He stepped to Kili, kneeling down and putting an arm around his shoulder. “Put your head between your knees and breathe deeply,” he said, patting the young dwarf in consolation – although slightly more forcefully than strictly necessary. “You’ll be right as rain in no time.”

Indeed, Kili was already picking himself up, batting off all helping hands. He groaned. “Ugh, Mahal help me.” He grabbed a mug of water and drank deeply. “I swear, that is a thing of evil.”

Cody bent down to pick up his bucket, and used the corner of Kili’s coat to clean it, and set it to reset. “Serves you right, little monkey.”

Getting back to his feet, he caught Dwalin’s gaze. “I’ll go check on the ponies,” he said, picking up his blaster. Well, at least the rest of the dwarves would be wary of picking through the rest of his possessions now. Hopefully.

***

After Cody had left, the excitement in the campsite died down gradually. The dwarves had tried to weasel it out of Kili what had actually happened, but the young dwarf was clearly embarrassed over the incident, and was reluctant to say anything. Finally giving up, the rest of the company divided into their usual groups once again, talking quietly among themselves, cleaning their weapons or repairing their equipment and preparing to turn in for the night.

Thorin had taken Kili aside and was now quietly talking to him. They were too far to be overheard, but Kili looked sulky and kept shaking his head.

“What do you think, parental dressing-down, or is Thorin getting the true story out of him?” Bofur asked curiously.

“Bet you it’s the latter,” Nori ventured a guess.

Gloin snorted. “If Thorin’s clever, I bet it’ll be both.”

Dori picked up Cody’s discarded tunic and repaired the tear in it quickly, with well-practiced stitches, then folded the garment carefully and laid it on top of the soldier’s backpack.

His gaze fell on a clean bowl that was sitting beside the backpack. “Ori,” he called, “do you know if Kodi had supper?”

After a brief ask-around among the dwarves, it became clear that he hadn’t, so they scraped a portion from the pot and Fili was told to take it to their companion. For a while everything was quiet again.

Suddenly there was a shout, followed by odd, deep woofing sounds.

The dwarves sprang to their feet. “What was that? That was no dog.”

“Nor a warg.”

“Then what was it?”

At that moment an angry roar tore through the night, and a voice that they all recognised – Fili’s voice – yelled, “Trolls! Trolls!”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had originally planned to take this chapter further, until the trolls. Heck, the trolls were supposed to make their appearance in the previous chapter already. They were not cooperating, and this time it was Fili and Kili who had their own ideas.


	8. The Trollish Chapter

Cody was sitting on one of the boulders that peppered the landscape here. The ponies, of course, were munching their flowers in utter contentment, as happy as they could be. As they had all been unloaded, unsaddled and brushed earlier, there was little else for Cody to do but sit, mind his own thoughts and make sure some errant dragon would not make away with one of the beasts during the night.

 

So that’s what he did. No errant dragon was in sight. Night had fallen swiftly and already the stars were out. The air was ridiculously pure, fragrant and alive, filling his lungs with sheer excitement with every inhalation. Trees stood like silent sentinels around the little meadow where their ponies grazed, and the world around him was filled with summer night noises, rustles, murmurs, sleepy chirping, all unfamiliar, beautiful and at the same time carrying a chilling note. Suddenly the feeling was very clear that here he was, a clone, all alone without his brothers, and this huge, limitless, untamed nature all around him. And somewhere out there, at the end of this journey, was a fire-breathing dragon.

 

Cody sighed. Not that he was afraid, as such. He was a clone, and the only thing he had to lose, the only thing that, he could say with some degree of honesty, was truly his, was his life; and ever since they had come out of their cloning jars, they had been trained to get used to the idea that their purpose in this existence was to lay down that same life in protection of other beings.

 

Well, these dwarves _were_ “other beings”, and had been rather nice to him at that, way nicer than many others he had met. They had taken him in, they fed him and gave him things he needed, and they spoke to him like he was equal with them, a true-born being and not a mass-produced clone. They joked with him (even though occasionally he could do without the two little monkeys’ urge to constantly pat his shaved head), they laughed with him, they gave him _companionship_.

 

 As a clone, he had always, always been surrounded by his brothers; never before had he really, for any longer stretch of time, been deprived of the camaraderie, the knowledge of having someone by your side who would know and understand you with the deepest nerves of his body, and whom you could trust implicitly. Being alone was something completely alien to him. The loneliness, the lack of that companionship had been the most difficult to endure, before the dwarves had taken him in. The week he had wandered around, even the food he had been given occasionally hadn’t been able to ease the true hunger he felt, the hunger for being able to hear a brother’s footsteps by your side; of having someone to turn to whenever you wanted to speak, even if you didn’t actually speak to him – what mattered was just the knowledge that you could, if you wanted to.

 

And for that, he was grateful to the dwarves. No, all things considered, he thought he wouldn’t really mind laying down his life for them.

 

He put on his helmet (and as always in the past weeks, for a brief moment he was discomfited by the empty sections on his HUD display where all the active callsigns of the nearby clone units were listed, as well as other communication net signals) and switched to night vision. The ponies glowed reddish on his display, and a light dot showed where further down, behind some trees, their campfire still burned.  Occasionally there were other dots, some so tiny and weak that they barely even registered – probably the source of all those hums and chirps that filled the air.

 

As he rose from his position and hopped down from the boulder to stretch his legs, he thought he saw something flash. It must have been something further out, and likely hidden by rocks and vegetation. Stepping on another boulder, he suddenly saw it a bit more clearly: apparently another fire. Well, he supposed, they were not far from what the dwarves had called the East Road (even though it was hardly more than a footpath, if that, in Cody’s eyes), so it stood to reason that there would be other travellers? In any case, it seemed to be close to a kilometer from their position, so he decided that they would not pose an immediate problem.

 

From the corner of his eye he saw a figure appear on his display (once again, a balloon saying “unidentified” hung over his head on the HUD) Indeed, the next moment he heard a soft call: “Kodi! Your supper’s here.”

 

***

 

Cody sat himself down for a hot date with his supper, while Fili went for a brief visit to the ponies – an apple for his own, a pat for Kili’s, and sticking his tongue out at Thorin’s sulky beast who tried to nip him. His obligatory diplomatic round thus completed, he plopped down by Cody’s side, resting his back against a moss-covered boulder.

 

“How is Kili?” Cody asked between mouthfuls. He did feel slightly remorseful; a sudden attack of 360-degree vision with all the overlaid scripts could not have been easy to take for the young dwarf. He chided himself for not having taken the bucket back earlier; that way he might have averted the incident.

 

Fili shrugged. “He’s fine. Being chewed by Uncle, but that’s nothing new.”

 

“Mm.”

 

“Oin says you did something to Kili, and I think Gandalf is inclined to believe him,” the golden-haired dwarf informed him.

 

“Hmm.”

 

“Bofur doesn’t believe him, says it’s codswallop. And Uncle... I don’t know what he thinks.”

 

Cody took his time, chewing and swallowing, trying to figure out the politics of their little company. “So it is basically Oin’s word against Bofur’s, and Thorin does not want to take sides?”

 

“Well, not quite. Uncle and Balin are not likely to listen to Bofur. He’s just a miner.”

 

“Meaning, poor?”

 

Fili shrugged. “It’s not easy to explain. It’s not that he is poor, but... he does not have the connections. He does not _see_ the connections, the possibilities... He’s simply not been brought up that way. He’s not a lord.”

 

“Ah.” He finished eating, scraping the last remnants from his bowl and licking off the spoon. “And what do you think, young prince and lord?”

 

Fili fidgeted by his side. “Dunno,” he admitted. Looking up at Cody, he said somewhat shyly, “I try to think like Uncle Thorin, to be more like him, but I’m afraid I’m not very good.” He pulled his braids nervously. “I think... I think your helmet is magical, but it is not evil. _You_ are not evil. I don’t think you are,” he finished hastily.

 

Swallowing a lump in his throat, Cody had no idea what to say to that. Casting around in his mind for a proper response, he suddenly became aware that the sounds of nature around him had ceased.

 

Signalling the dwarf to be quiet, he picked up his blaster and helmet and rose slowly and carefully.

 

There was the sound of breaking twigs and branches. And again. And another. Something moved between the trees, and it was gradually coming closer.

 

“What is it?” Fili whispered by his side, drawing his swords. “I can’t see anything.”

 

Cody could, though. Although still hidden behind trees and bushes, the creature was already partially visible on his Lifeform Finder. Humanoid, about ten feet, heavily built. He had no idea what it was or whether it was friend or foe, but better safe than sorry.

 

Fili kept nudging him. “Do you see anything? What is it? I’ll go call the oth—“

 

“Wait,” Cody stopped him with a gesture. “Don’t move until we make visual contact. Perhaps the creature is not yet aware of us.”

 

But then it was already too late. The creature crashed out of the trees and made a beeline towards their ponies, not caring what was on its path. Trees broke and branches snapped on its way.

 

“A troll!” Fili gasped, horrified. And then he yelled out a warning towards the camp, “Dharg!”

 

“This thing's going for our ponies,” Cody hissed. “See if you can free them. I’ll take care of this chap.”

 

Fili gaped. “Are you _stupid_? It’s a bloody troll! You don’t take a troll on all alone!”

 

But Cody was already moving to intercept the huge creature.

 

The ponies were nickering nervously and trying to get away as quickly as their hobbled legs permitted. Which wasn’t quickly enough, as the troll had already picked up one and was reaching for another.

 

“Hey!” Cody shouted. “Hey, you! Shortie!”

 

“Ummmm?” with a groan the troll turned, surprised, to see who dared to speak to it.

 

“Put my ponies down!” He pointed his blaster at the troll, who did not seem to realize that it was in any kind of danger, because it was in no apparent hurry to obey. “I said, put. Them. Down.”

 

And he pulled the trigger. A blue blaster-bolt hit the troll in the shoulder – after all, Cody was still somewhat hesitant to shoot civilians.

 

The creature roared in anger and pain, but much to Cody’s surprise, it did not fall. It just dropped the ponies and rubbed the burned site confusedly; but in the next moment its attention was once again grabbed by the ponies. It made to recapture the two, growling to itself, “Dun really like dinner runnin’ away.”

 

“What the f**k? Didn’t feel that, did you?” Indeed, as Cody moved closer, he saw clearly the rock-like texture of its thick skin. The clone squeezed off another couple of shots. The troll let out a blood-curdling roar of challenge. It swung a huge fist at him, which Cody only barely managed to evade, as he kept shooting. And still the troll refused to fall.

 

Cody couldn’t run, because their camp was behind him: under no circumstances would he let this creature there, to trample his comrades. And then there was young Fili here, and his puny little swords, which would have no chance against such a thick-skinned enemy. No, Cody had to deal with it here, and now.

 

A point-blank shot might do it, he figured. It would punch right through a clone helmet, so why not a troll’s skin? The problem was, what with the arm-swinging and foot-stomping, it was very difficult to get close enough; not to mention that dancing between all those scattered rocks and clumps of grass, trying to avoid tripping, made proper aiming pretty difficult.

 

Well, time to be stupidly brave, he supposed. He didn’t really think the ploy would succeed, but he had to try.

 

He froze in place, forcing his muscles not to move. “Pick me up,” he called out to the troll. “Come on, try it.”

 

And, much to his surprise, the troll did. And then it was merely a matter of putting the blaster against its forehead, and it went down like a, well, like a dead troll.

 

 

***

 

Fili meanwhile had done good work, skipping between the ponies and cutting through their hobbles so that the animals could escape. The two who had been captured were no longer in any condition to run; and the others too were so agitated that more likely than not they would hit the dwarf with their hooves, if he was not careful enough.

 

Fili wasn’t sure what made him look up all of a sudden, but what he saw made his blood run cold. “Another bloody troll!” And it was approaching fast.

 

There was no way Cody could deal with two of these giant creatures all alone. He needed help.

 

Fili swore in Khuzdul, and then mustered his courage. He had never ever fought anything as big as this troll here; but he was a prince of the royal line, and Mahal himself may turn away his face from him if he gave in to fear!

 

Why weren’t the others coming? Hadn’t they heard his warning? “Trolls! Trolls!” he yelled once more, hoping that it was loud enough for the rest of their camp to hear. Twirling, he readied his swords, prepared to guard Cody’s back.

 

Just as he saw the first troll go down, from the corner of his eye he suddenly saw a huge fist, and then everything went black.

 

***

 

Well, _osik_ , thought Cody when he saw Fili go down. Two more trolls! That wasn’t going so well. He danced away from the dwarf’s prone body, to try and lure them away, so that Fili would not be trampled. Taking careful aim, squeezing several shots at one of the trolls who was rushing at him. The troll fell to its knees, howling, pawing at its face, and yet staring at him with one bloodshot, hate-filled eye.

 

Cody was a fraction of a second too late to avoid the ripped-off treetrunk that the other troll was using as a club.

 

***

 

When the rest of the dwarves burst into the clearing, waving their weapons and shouting war cries, Dwalin and Bombur had to duck to avoid being hit by Cody’s flying body.

 

They overwhelmed the injured troll easily, and Bifur killed it, sticking his boar spear through its remaining eye. The other troll, though, escaped, tearing through the woods.

 

“Should we follow?” Dwalin asked.

 

Thorin hesitated only for a fraction of a second. “No. See to the injured.”

 

Fili was already regaining consciousness, groaning. He had a broken arm, a concussion, and a huge grin on his face when he spotted his brother. Kili was all over him, hugging and simultaneously laughing and crying, making sure that his brother would live. Thorin patted both of his nephews, secure in their continued survival, and went to see how their fourteenth companion fared.

 

Cody was not doing so well. The armour had protected him from most of the damage, but the impact had been so hard that the breast-plate had cracked, bending inwards. At some point he had also lost his helmet, and his head had taken damage when he had made closer acquaintance with a rock, his human skull being not as hard as a dwarf’s.

 

“I fear he may also have some internal damage,” Oin announced gloomily. “I’m not sure what to do about that. Tharkun, can you do something?”

 

Gandalf placed a hand on the clone’s chest for a moment, then shook his head. “I’m afraid my powers lie elsewhere. However, I have a friend who lives nearby, and who also happens to be a great healer. Perhaps he could help Kodi? And I think young Fili might also benefit from his knowledge.”

 

Thorin narrowed his eyes. “Who is this friend?”

 

But Ori seemed to have figured it out already. “It must be an Elf. The Elven kingdom of lord Elrond lies nearby.”

 

Thorin grimaced and several of the dwarves made noises of disdain. However, they were in wild lands where help was scarce, so they were in no position to reject it when it was close by.

 

“Ride fast then, and bring your friends to help,” he told the wizard. “And be sure to tell them that there is a troll loose around here.”


	9. The Allied Forces

Dwarves were certainly not much worth as trackers, Balin had to admit to himself. Well, maybe Kili would have been able to save their honour, as he had some hunting experience; but in general, it was somewhat telling that the Company had managed to lose a whole troll on the landscape. By the time half of the Elves, led by Lord Elrond himself, had left for Rivendell, taking with them Kodi and Fili, who both needed healing (and Oin who would not leave his patients, and Kili who would not leave his brother, and Ori and Bombur who were commanded by Thorin to see to the safety of their companions), and the remaining Dwarves and Elves had sorted themselves out for a troll-hunt, none of them had any idea which direction the surviving creature had disappeared to.

 

And then that golden-haired Elf with a ridiculously long name (Glory-something, but Balin decided to keep to Master Elf, just in case) turned his head this way and that, said something in this babbling tongue of theirs and off they went, calling for everyone to follow, and the Dwarves had no choice but to do as they were told.

 

They rode through several thickets, grass-covered ground and heaths scattered with rocks, in a steady pace as if there was a clear road ahead of them – and, Balin thought, maybe for the Elves indeed there was. Time and again they were pointing at branches or grass which apparently told them something, although to Balin’s eyes – and indeed he would have bet his magnificent beard that his were the sharpest pair of eyes in Thorin Oakenshield’s Company – the said branches and leaves of grass exhibited but the natural disorder of All Things Above the Ground.

 

Thorin spurred his pony on from where he had been riding side by side with Dwalin. He leaned closer slightly in his saddle.

 

“You think the tree-huggers are on the right track?” he hissed in Khuzdul. “What if they are tricking us?”

 

“Don’t think so. There is a troll on the loose somewhere near their borders. I am sure getting rid of the monster is their first priority right now.” He threw a shrewd glance at his lord and cousin. “Rather, I am asking myself, why did _you_ agree to ride with the elves today?”

 

Thorin smirked. “There is a monster on the loose somewhere nearby. If we can help them get rid of it...”

 

Balin nodded. “They would owe you some gratitude. It is good to know that you paid attention during your lessons, after all. I was beginning to despair. Speaking of gratitude, the elves already do owe us, actually – if we are really to believe what Fili said, then Kodi did one of them in singlehandedly. You should at least give him an honourable battle-name.”

 

Thorin nodded. “As you say.”

 

There was some commotion at the head of the file. “There!” the Glory-elf pointed agead. “That must be its cave. It must have gone to ground here.” He spurred his horse to a canter, pulling out his bright sword.

 

“A right crazy one, that,” Dwalin rumbled from behind them. “Five coins says he’ll try to attack the door with his sword.”

 

Balin and Thorin laughed. Trolls were creatures of stone, and dwarves understood what that meant. They were not famous for any craft or diligence, but when a troll made a door of stone and locked it, then the door stayed put. Unless you had a key (1) to open it, that is.

 

Or else – Balin looked back at the dwarves riding behind him – unless you had a few truly awesome dwarves with you.

 

And indeed, as they moved closer, even the dwarves could now see a rough-hewn door in a rock face. The ponies nickered nervously and stomped the ground, huffing at their riders. Near the door, the troll stench was unpleasantly noticeable even to the rather un-finicky dwarven noses. They dismounted and tied their animals to the trees in a nearby copse. A couple of elves came to whisper something to their ponies, which seemed to calm them somewhat. Dori bowed and thanked them, and somewhat to Balin’s surprise, the elves smiled and bowed back.

 

As they gathered around, the golden-haired elf actually loped up to the door and tried it – utterly crazy, Balin shook his head. Was he hoping just to waltz up to a troll? The elf tried to shake the heavy stone and gave it a few kicks, shouting out his frustration, and Dwalin smugly pocketed his wins.

 

There was a brief pause. The elves seemed somewhat taken aback by the outburst of their leader, and kept looking alternately at each other and the golden-haired elf, unsure what to do. The dwarves were keeping apart from the elves but they, too, were looking to Thorin for guidance.

 

Squaring his shoulders, the prince planted his axe squarely on the ground before him.

 

“We make camp here,” he called out. “You lot,” he turned to the elves, “your friend’s efforts are quite vain, so better bring him back here and let us dwarves do our work now.” And he gestured to the company, “Bofur, Nori, see what you can do.”

 

So they seated themselves on the grass or on nearby rocks, resting under the early summer sun that was already creeping up to the zenith. The two companies still kept apart, although not far from each other, but still out of the reach of hand. They were sitting with their backs to the other group, each race talking quietly among themselves in their own tongue. Oin and Gloin soon got a fire going, for which the dwarves at least were very grateful, for they had gone without breakfast that day, and Dori dug out a pouch of dried herbs from his bag and brewed tea for everyone.

 

When the dwarves’ cups were filled and there was still enough tea left in the pot. Dori hesitated a bit but then took it to the elves, and several of them held out their mugs to be filled. Still, some kept throwing them suspicious looks and refused the offering.

 

Balin was quietly munching on a piece of cram, sitting nearby Thorin, when a shadow fell over them. Looking up, the dwarves were surprised to see the same Glory-elf, accompanied with a dark-haired one who bore some semblance to Elrond. Both plopped themselves down next to them.

 

“So,” the Elrond-lookalike asked. “Will you let us in on the secret, what are these three _nuig_ (2) doing there?”

 

All four looked towards the rock wall near the troll-door where Bofur, Bifur and Nori were crawling about, humming to themselves, knocking on the stone with little silver hammers and then pressing their ears to the stone surface. Bofur was actually standing on Bifur’s shoulders, reaching up as high as he could as he did so. Yes, Balin imagined, for one who had never known Dwarves in their natural habitat, it must have looked odd.

 

“It is called stone-speaking,” he explained. “Since we cannot open the door, they are seeing whether we can open the wall around the door.”

 

“Stone-speaking?” Curiosity shone in the elves’ eyes. “But, how can stone speak? It is not a living thing, it is, well, it’s just... stone!”

 

Balin stroked his beard. “How can ponies speak? They are mute,” he countered. “And yet I saw one of you speak with ponies just a little while ago.”

 

“But ponies are—“

 

“You have likely never seen such, or even heard of it,” Balin interrupted him, “for we dwarves like to keep to ourselves. However, there is a monster inside who would lay the lands around here to waste, if he could. So,” he lifted his tea mug in a toast, “see and learn, lads, see and learn. You’ll likely not see it again in all your endless years.”

 

“Hush now,” Thorin hissed. “Let them do their work.”

 

***

 

The wall did come down. It just took some arcane dwarven mixture put together by Balin, Oin and Nori from their supplies, and quite a bit of muscle power provided by both dwarves and elves, all under the direction of the three stone-speakers. The explosions widened the fissures that were already there in the rock, and the well-directed hits shook stone from stone, until the weakened structure fell down upon itself, just in time for the afternoon sun to shine directly over the hills of rubble into the cracks and caverns of rock.

 

The Glory-elf was, naturally, the first who sprang into the crack that had opened. While the sunlight that shone in had not been quite enough to turn the troll to stone as he was crouching at the back of his cave, in the end the elf (who, Balin had learned meanwhile, was the famous Balrog-Bane of the tales of old), proved that he was really stuff of legends, and the surrounding lands were freed from the terror of trolls.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTES:
> 
> 1\. According to the book, the dwarves can only open the troll cave because one of the trolls had accidentally dropped a key and Bilbo found it. Which, of course, made me think that the trolls probably were not aware that the key was lost, and trying to find it in all that nature and grass and twigs and pebbles, they would most likely have been caught by dawn anyway. But, yeah. Just a fact to illustrate the old saying, “You don’t just walk into a troll cave.”
> 
>  
> 
> 2\. Nuig is the plural of naug, the Sindarin word for Dwarves.
> 
>  
> 
> Hopefully back to Cody in the next chappie, but god knows when that is going to happen.


	10. Healing

He hurt.

 

He bloody hurt all over.

 

His head was positively hammering, so that he could barely hear his own thoughts, and the rest of his body felt like an AT-AT had tap-danced over it. He couldn’t even find enough strength to piece together what had happened, why he was hurting so.

 

He hurt like Hutt’s piles, and he bloody needed his painkiller shot. He needed it now. Why was nobody seeing to him? Where was the medic? Where was everybody? Where was his medkit? Where was he?

 

“Medkit. Painkiller,” he tried to say, but he suspected that what came out was more like a feeble, wordless groan.

 

“Ah, you’re back with us, Mahal be praised!” a vaguely familiar voice exclaimed nearby. “I was beginning to lose hope. Here, lad, try to drink that.”

 

His head was gently lifted and a cup placed to his lips, and too confused and distracted by the pain, he drank a sip. The concoction was most unpleasantly bitter and he tried to turn his head away.

 

“Drink it, laddie, it’ll help with the pain.”

 

“Oin,” he suddenly could put a name to the voice. He tried to open his eyes, but his vision was too blurry to make out what was happening around him.

 

“Aye, that’s me. How do you feel? No, no, stay down.” He was pressed gently back down when he tried to sit up. “Rest, don’t move. Keep yer eyes closed if ye want to.”

 

“’Urts,” he moaned.

 

The old dwarf sighed. “I know. Those cursed elves’ve been in and out of here, brought all sorts of magic herbs and potions. Wouldn’t trust one of these fer meself or the other lads, but you, ye’re of the Men-folk, closer to the tree-shaggers, so they might know what to do with ye.” He patted his shoulder gently. “Ye’ll be fine, laddie, don’t ye worry. ‘Sides, we’re all here to see that they don’t try anything weird. So don’t worry.”

 

“K-kit.” Cody hated the pleading tone that had crept into his voice.

 

“What did you say?” There was a rustle of clothes and a long strand of hair ran over his cheek, as Oin bent closer to hear.

 

“Kit,” Cody tried to speak louder and clearer. “Pain. K-k. Kh...‘iller.” This probably didn’t come out right, but he wasn’t sure what was wrong.

 

“The poor lad’s delirious,” Oin sighed. Cody wanted to hit him. He would have, if he could. He would, once this pain receded. If he remembered.

 

“No, I think he said something,” another voice interjected, a young, boisterous voice. Kili. “I think he’s asking for a painkiller.”

 

_Ah, thank you, little monkey._

 

“I just gave him the tea those blasted elves left for him. Maybe they’ll have some poppy-milk...”

 

_Stop babbling, Oin, and listen to me. Listen to what I’m trying to say. Please._

 

“Kit-t,” he tried again.

 

“He’s asking for his kit! His little belt-bag, he calls it his kit. Here, it’s here, I brought it along.” Kili scuffled around by his side. “Do you have a painkiller here? Where?”

 

“White. Red c-ross.” He slitted his eyes, trying to concentrate enough to see what was before him. Kili, bless his soul, had got the medkit open and held it well within the reach of his hand and there they were, blue-wrapped painkiller shots and yellow adrenalin shots side by side. Now if he could just get one... Moving his arm carefully, he grabbed one of the blue ones, tearing the plastic away with his teeth, and stuck the needle in, not really caring where, just as long as he could have the dose, some relief...

 

Oin gave a shout, “No, lad–”, but Cody couldn’t care less. Immediately he could feel the sweet painless balm spread along his body, oh blessed, blessed peace, oh thank heavens, oh he could breathe again. With a relieved sigh he relaxed back, letting the syringe fall from his nerveless hands.

 

****

 

When Cody next came to, it was to a pair of deep, old and wise grey eyes in a strangely youthful face.

 

“Well hello there, Kodi,” the stranger said, noticing that the clone had opened his eyes, and in his musical voice the name sounded like Koh-dee.

 

Cody’s vision had apparently improved – he let his eyes travel over the graceful silver circlet on the stranger’s head, his eerily beautiful ageless face framed by silky tresses, the clothes embroidered with gold around the neck and sleeves.

 

“Pretty,” he informed the apparition when he had formed his opinion.

 

There were some decidedly dwarvish-sounding snickers all around, and the apparition also grinned merrily – which transformed his face, removing the traces of old-and-wise-ness.

 

“Why thank you! My name is Elrond, and you and your comrades are guests in my house.” He placed a cool, slender hand on Cody’s forehead murmured sing-song in a strange, melodious language, leaving behind a strange, refreshing feeling of being revived, revitalised, a feeling that made Cody almost purr. New strength poured into him and he would have got up and climbed out of the bed, but for the elf pressing him back down and telling him to stay put.

 

The corner of his mouth quirking when Cody finally couldn’t keep his groan down, lord Elrond examined his eyes, felt his forehead and pulse points. “You’ve been doing very good,” he said. “Healing much faster than any other Man I know. You’ve had many injuries before, I see.”

 

“Soldier,” was Cody’s explanation.

 

“Ah. Thought so. But with you, it’s as if you are in a particular hurry to heal. In fact, I get the feeling that you’re hurrying to... live? I can feel an indescribable fire in you.” He patted Cody’s head and rose. “You’ll be fine. But relax, don’t be so impatient. You humans, you’re so eager, so greedy to live. You should learn to slow down, to take your time. Healing fast is good, but if you don’t slow down, your life will be over before you know.”

 

It took a moment for Cody to suspect what lord Elrond was speaking about. “Must be the acceleration,” he said.

 

The elf stopped. “The what?”

 

“I’m a clone,” Cody admitted. “I’m accelerated.” Seeing no understanding dawn in the other’s eyes, he elaborated, “That means our bodies are sped up, so to say. We grow faster. We clones are bred to be the perfect soldiers; but war kills off soldiers at a faster pace than they can be replaced. So they have engineered us so that we grow faster. About twice as fast as normal, I’d say. Therefore, my cells are also renewed at double the speed; hence the fast healing.”

 

As there was still no reply forthcoming, he finally offered, “Sorry. I should probably have told you I was no true-born. I should have told the dwarves. Only... I did not think it would matter.”

 

“It doesn’t,” Lord Elrond replied without hesitation. “I can feel no difference in you, except the... acceleration,” he tried out the unfamiliar word carefully. “May I ask how old are you?”

 

“Eighteen, I think. Don’t know it exactly to the day, but that must be more or less accurate.”

 

Lord Elrond sat back on the chair that he had occupied before, shaking his head. “I have never heard anything like that in all my long life. Can’t say I even understand half of what you just said.” He reached out to pick up something from the bedside table. “Your healer, Oin, said you stuck this thing into yourself and it took away the pain.”

 

“It’s a syringe. A hollow needle, used to inject medicines in liquid form straight to your bloodstream. Much quicker than ingesting them.”

 

“Amazing,” Elrond said, turning the thing in his hands and studying it. “Very fine work.” He laid it back on the table and left the room.

 

There was a scuffle and Fili, Kili and Ori appeared at his bedside. “Fili says you spat fire on the trolls – is that true?”

 

“I just shot—“ Cody jumped, suddenly remembering. “Where’s my blaster? And my helmet? And, and...” he patted his body, “where’s my armour?”

 

Ori picked up a bundle wrapped carefully in cloth and placed it gingerly on the bed. Feverishly Cody dug in it until he found his weapon. It was still activated, so Cody quickly deactivated the power pack before he could breathe more easily. The helmet was also in the bundle, and most parts of his armour.

 

“You chestplate was cracked,” Ori said apologetically. “Bombur and Oin and some elvish smiths are trying to find whether it can be fixed.” Then he took out a book, opening it to show them his latest drawing. “I tried to capture your fight with the trolls, the way Fili described it. He said there were like... arrows of fire?”

 

“We call them blaster bolts, but yeah. Not fire – plasma – compressed burning gas. Technically it is not an arrow, it is a slightly deformed ball, but because of its velocity it seems like an arrow... Oh, whatever. Let’s just say yeah, this thing spits fire. As long as there’s some food for fire in its belly,” Cody patted the tibanna cartridge. Then he took a moment to study the picture. Ori was amazingly talented, he had to admit – he had captured Cody perfectly, if perhaps looking a bit too heroic. The troll, on the other hand, looked realistic and rather frightening. Actually, Cody felt rather flattered to be immortalized on a picture like that. “

 

“But Kodi,” Fili spoke up. “If what you said to Elrond... If you grew up fast... Does that mean you will also grow old fast?”

 

“Theoretically, yes. Not that we really grow old – we’ll likely die in battle long before that.”

 

That shocked the dwarves and effectively killed the conversation until supper was brought in.


	11. A Short Rest

The Company ended up spending three weeks in Rivendell. They rested, ate well (after the first night, which had been somewhat of a disaster, the dwarves learned that the elves actually did eat meat, although not very much of it, but they were masters at curing, drying and smoking meat and their breads and cheeses were beyond compare) and generally had a good time. Bofur made a new flute for himself, to replace the one that had been lost in the flood of the Brandywine, and Thorin carefully and somewhat shyly tried out an Elvish harp. Some of the Company, as usual, made use of the local forge to repair their weapons and gear, but by now Cody had a suspicion that it was not just about work for them; it was a Calling. They actually enjoyed it.

 

They also repaired Cody’s breastplate, in a manner: if the clone commander ever found his way back to his army and his brothers, it would no way pass muster, but the metal bands attached to the plasteel kept the thing together and provided him with some protection.

 

Of course, being dwarves, they lovingly wove runic inscriptions into those metal bands. Cody had no idea what was written there, as he could not read the runes, but he immediately started making plans how to keep the bands if he ever made it back to his world. They had been made especially for him, after all. It was extremely rare for a clone to have something like that.

 

Cody himself had regular “slowing-down” sessions with the Elrond and his sons, which involved lots of quiet elvish singing over him, but also left time for long talks. He ended up telling the Elven lord the story of how he had shot General Kenobi. That day involved some, well, some shaking hands and a lump in his throat and maybe, just maybe, some red eyes, but that may have been an allergy caused by all these flowering plants hanging from the outside and creeping into the room.

 

When both Cody and Fili were well enough and allowed out of their beds, a feast was held in celebration of their joint victory over the trolls. Wine and mead flowed freely, lots of sweetmeats had been prepared and Bombur had set up his dwarven grill-stand which turned out to be very popular among some of the elves, including the famous Glor-something. The dwarves still thought his name was unreasonably long and complicated; the blond menace retaliated by calling them Blinkin and Blonkin, indiscriminately, not caring whom he was actually addressing. The dwarves were introduced to a rare elvish delicacy, small sweet brown squares sprinkled with nuts and pieces of dried fruit. They were made from a bitter brown powder produced from the seeds of a tree that grew far in the East called cah-cao.

 

At some point Bofur climbed up to the table and took up a song.

 

“Sing ho! Play your pipes  
And let your drums roll  
For Kodi the Fearless  
Who brought down a troll!  
The foe has been vanquished,  
The terror brought low,  
And so we make merry,  
Sing ho, sing ho!

 

All the dwarves were jumping and stomping around him, singing along and lifting their goblets in toast with every ‘ho!’. After they had finished with Cody, they took on Bifur, for finishing Troll Number Two, and then they all, with some reinforcements from the elvish party, laid siege on Glorfindel, feting him in the same noisy dwarvish manner (“Sing hey! for the Blondie and his ever-sharp sword...”). The famous Balrog-slayer was tickled by such unusual praise and kept humming the tune throughout the evening, until other elves started to complain.

 

Then there were more songs, from the elves as well as from the dwarves, and story-telling – mostly from the elves – while Ori went around and asked several people to sit for him for a quick sketch. Cody had been given a place at the high table, where he tried to stay as much as he could, to protect his toes and shins from the iron-shod boots of the dancing dwarves. Not being accustomed to wine, especially of the elven variety, he felt slightly dizzy after his second cup, so he just sat back and enjoyed the show. Thorin must have had a similar idea, for he kept to his seat next to Cody.

 

So when Lord Elrond’s twin sons carried in some cloth-wrapped bundles and plonked them down on the table, revealing some swords, Cody had to push away his plate in haste to save it, as one of the blades slid dangerously close.

 

“Elvish work,” Thorin growled dourly beside him. “We found the things in the troll cave,” he explained for Cody’s benefit. “Would not touch them, of course, but the gits brought them along nevertheless.”

 

“That is because,” one of the twins said, “you will not find better blades anywhere. They seem old, but being of elven-make, they will warn you when orcs are near, and they never dull.”

 

Cody looked sceptical. He was hesitant to trust a weapon whose best-before must have expired ages ago, but when he slightly touched the edge with his fingertip, a drop of blood welled up. They would cut through flesh like through butter.

 

“These were made in the hidden city of Gondolin in the First Age by the High Elves, our kin,” Elrond announced from his seat on Thorin’s other side. He bent down to examine them closely. “This here is called Orcrist, the Orc-cleaver. It has killed hundreds of orcs in its time, and I sense its work is not yet done. Lord Glorfindel here tells me that it used to belong to his friend Egalmoth. He says he would have it gifted to you, Thorin son of Thrain son of Thror.”

 

The dwarf beside Cody stilled. “But...” he stuttered. “But surely, Lord Glor-findel would...”

 

“I find I have no desire to touch it,” the blond elf spoke up. “It is a true blade, fit for a lord of a royal house and warrior such as yourself. But as for me, it would just... bring up memories. Which I do not really care about.”

 

Thorin opened his mouth and closed it for a few times. He was torn between his dislike of all things elvish on principle, and the quite obvious beauty and quality of the sword before him, which even Cody could perceive. Finally the latter won out. “In that case, I am deeply honoured, and I will try to do it justice. In return, I would gift the Lord Glor-findel with my own sword.” He pulled it from its scabbard, presenting it for the elf to inspect. “Best dwarven work. It is the very blade that cut off Azog the Defiler’s hand. It is called Deathless; somewhat apt in your case, I hear.” Everyone chuckled, bows were exchanged and the gift accepted.

 

Meanwhile, Elrond was studying another sword – this one more like a bastard sword, if such an ugly name could do justice to its sleek, carefully wrought form. It was longer than Orcrist, in fact too long for a dwarf to wield comfortably, and could probably be used by a man in a one-handed or two-handed grip.

 

Naturally, this blade also bore a name – Glamdring, or Foe-hammer, as Elrond announced. Cody thought the custom of naming weapons was somewhat weird. Was he expected to do the same with his blaster? Nah, he decided; not unless the dwarves really demanded it. Good and serviceable as his blaster was, it was still mass-produced and interchangeable with any of his brothers’ ones; whereas these things here were clearly custom-made.

 

“This sword once belonged to the High Elven king of Gondolin, my great-grandfather,” Elrond proclaimed. “Long have my people been wondering what has become of it, and now it has been found once more. As with Orcrist, I foresee many more great deeds for the sword. Koh-dee Troll-slayer – would you carry it?”

 

Cody’s eyes widened. For him? A King’s sword? “Me, sir? Are you sure? I – I am no king. And, and I have nothing to offer you back,” he said worriedly, thinking back on Thorin’s gift. Nothing he had with him belonged to him in truth – it was all property of the Army.

 

Elrond laughed. “You need not, truly! It’s a gift. And one that, I think, you will need once the – how did you put it? – once the fire-food runs out in your fire-stick.”

 

That much was true, Cody had to admit to himself.

 

Oh, and he could name his blaster after all, he decided. He would name it Stick.

 

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had actually planned to get to the Misty Mountains with this chapter. Well Blondie had other ideas.


	12. Down, Down to Goblin Town

All good things must end, and so did their short rest in Rivendell. Loaded with provisions, though no ponies this time, and armed with good advice from Lord Elrond, thirteen dwarves, one clone soldier and one wizard set out to cross the Misty Mountains.

 

As days passed and they climbed higher and higher, their path became more and more treacherous. Below, summer had been reigning with mild breezes and warm sunshine; up here, gales kept trying to blast them off track and down sheer cliffs and the very ground seemed to be against them: when it was not rocks tripping them or soil shifting underfoot, causing them to slip and lose their footing, it was boulders, released from their icy prison near the mountaintops, thundering down the slopes, not caring whether there was a dwarf or three on their way.

 

Then came thunderstorms (worse than when you were standing in a power shield, Cody thought), and with these, stone giants came out to play. There were three of them just a little further down the steep valley, and even Gandalf kept throwing worried glances that way to see whether they stayed there or moved closer: you could never know when one of them might take into his head to step across the valley, and then the Company would be in deep trouble.

 

Not that the lightning in itself was not dangerous: while in the lowlands they would occasionally hit a tree or higher rock, but otherwise keep to their high domain, up here in the mountains the thunderbolts seemed to want to get up close and personal with any traveller. They did not strike just vertically down but from any direction, and when they did, sparks flew and little glow-worm-like darts skittered along cracks and fissures in the rock and the roar and rumble threatened to deafen them. The noise played havoc with the built-in dampening system in Cody’s helmet, so in the end he had to take it off, which in turn meant that rivulets of rain kept trickling down his head and neck, creeping into his armour and wetting his body suit. But the clone commander was in no way worse off than his companions: huddling in their rain-heavy cloaks and wringing water from their beards, soaked to the bone and battered by the icy winds as they were, still climbing upward, their progress was very miserable indeed.

 

“Really, Mr Gandalf, couldn’t you do anything about the weather?” Dori complained.

 

“It is raining, Master dwarf,” Gandalf growled back, pulling his cloak more tightly around him, “and it will continue to rain until the rain is done. If you wish to change the weather of the world, you should find yourself another wizard.”

 

Cody pricked up his ears. A wizard? Gandalf was a wizard? Was that like a Jedi? “Are there any, sir?” he asked.

 

“What?”

 

“Other wizards?”

 

Gandalf stopped for a moment to catch his breath. “There are five of us...”

 

At that moment a boulder thrown by one of the stone giants flew towards them.

 

“Watch out!” – “Incoming!” Dwalin and Cody screamed simultaneously and they all pressed themselves to the meagre shelter offered by the cliffside, as the boulder hit the cliff far above their heads and exploded, raining shards and pebbles over them.

 

“We must find some shelter,” Thorin called over the roar of thunder. “Keep your eyes peeled for any cave!”

 

It was Kili who found one for them – a cave spacious enough where they could all lie down. With lit torches they checked it through to its furthest nooks, knowing that it was rare to find an unoccupied cave in these mountains. Gandalf’s mistrustful frown deepened when their torch fires indicated a slight draught at the back of the cave, but the rest of them pretended they had not seen anything, so reluctant were they to return to the mercy of a thunderstorm-cum-stone-giants’-bolo-match. The Dwarves were still worried and quiet, so they set a watch before eating a cold supper and lying down to sleep.

 

Cody fell asleep and dreamed. It was a very odd dream. He dreamed that he was inside a troop carrier. The bay lights were blinking and the distinguishing whoop-whoop-whoop sound indicated that the large ramp was about to be opened. Unfortunately, Cody was lying on that ramp, unable to move. He tried to signal the operator to close the ramp, tried to hail him over the comm, but he was met with complete silence – the same radio silence that he had been gradually getting used to in this world of Dwarves and Named Swords. He tried to wave, but it seemed as if he was invisible: there was no reaction from the officer, although he was clearly looking in Cody’s direction.

 

And then there was the scream of the sirens, sounding oddly like Ori, and the ramp slid open and Cody was falling faster and faster, feeling the tingly breeze of the magnetic containment field over his skin as he rolled out of the cargo bay into the open space that lay beyond, and he could only just grab his helmet and seal it to preserve oxygen...

 

He woke with a jolt, not realizing at first whether it was his dream continuing or not. Where last night there had been a bare crack in the wall less than a finger wide, a tunnel was gaping, spewing forth the ugliest, most twisted and sickly creatures he had ever seen – hunch-backed, bowlegged, squint-eyed, covered in a variety of festering wounds, ropy scars, boils and pustules. They – were these the orcs he had heard so much about? – came like a swarm of rats, grabbing them, pulling, pushing and pinching them, sitting on them so that they could not get up, dragging them along, squealing and gibbering and jeering and screeching whenever the helplessly squirming and flailing Dwarves managed to score a hit.

 

Before Cody could even open his mouth, there was a flash of light that nearly blinded him; the next instant they had been dragged into the tunnel and the opening closed behind them.

 

When the narrow passage suddenly opened to a wide, seemingly bottomless and ceilingless black pit crossed only by a precarious bridge of wood and ropes, the dwarves were dropped in a pile; they tried to fight but some of them had been haphazardly shackled, a leg to a hand to whatever other protruding element, without caring whether they belonged to the same dwarf. This hampered their movement considerably.

 

Cody had been almost at the end of their sorry little parade, except for little Ori, who had been on watch and thus farthest from the treacherous opening. The clone had been tied too, with a rope over his forearm, but in the chaos he managed to unlatch the vambrace and slid it out from under the rope, and the resulting loop was big enough that he managed to wrench his hand free.

 

Ending up near the top of the dwarven pile, he took his chance. A roll and twist, a low kick and push, and those of the orcs who were holding him went over the edge. The next instant Ori was pushed into him, teetering on the edge for a moment and Cody could just barely keep ahold of him, pulling him back. A sudden blow to his shoulder sent him into a bunch of orcs who tried to grab hold of him; he managed to get hold of the leather straps that one of them had crossed over his chest. For a second he used that orc as a sort of battering ram, Ori still having his back. Being at least two heads taller than any orc around him and much stronger, Cody could simply pick them up and fling them.

 

Unfortunately, there were too many. As he kicked another couple of orcs, one of them managed to grab him and he lost his balance. Ori, who had noticed it, tried to hold him back just as he had done for the young dwarf a few moments ago, but a clone was much taller and heavier. He fell over the edge, and with him Ori, to the anguished howls of Dori and Nori.

 

After a second he hit some sort of ledge, then slid along a slope downwards, losing his hold of Ori in the process, tried to grab on to something and fell again before hitting the ground with such force that his breath literally whooshed out of his body and for a moment his consciousness scrambled for a hold in his brain.

 

Taking a moment to reorder his thoughts, Cody began to assess his situation. Luckily for him, he had actually managed to put on his helmet. It had been a deeply ingrained reflex, reinforced by years of constant war and frequent night alarms, and it had most certainly saved his life, what with his recent concussion and all. Stick was still clipped to his belt, but Glamdring was gone. He had laid it down by his side when they had lain down to sleep in that cave, so it was most likely still in the sand on the cave floor.

 

He was lying on something softish and lumpy… and smelly. In fact, now that he noticed, the stench of death and decay was overpowering around him. Fighting the urge to retch, he reached up to switch on his night vision.

 

Oh, of course. The orcs that they had managed to throw down the platform. He was lying across the bloated belly of a huge (and very dead) one, and thought he recognised another lying nearby as the culprit of their fall. But, sitting up and looking around on the cave floor, Cody could not see Ori among the bodies.

 

With nausea he realised that bodies had been falling or thrown down here for decades, if not centuries. The cave was practically littered with bones, mostly of orcs, but he thought he saw some skulls that looked less diseased and twisted and could have belonged to men or possibly elves. Many still had remnants of rags, rusted pieces of armour or even strips of rotting flesh attached to them. He did not even want to think what the wet squishy sound meant that he could hear with each movement.

 

Above his head seemed to be a strange sort of canopy, uneven and broken off here and there, which obstructed his view of the platform from where he had started his descent. Upon closer inspection, though, he realized that the canopy was not of stone; soft, yielding, sponge-like, covered with a layer of slime, it was definitely organic matter. Some kind of… huge plants? Mushrooms? Flesh eating mushrooms feeding on the decaying matter that was so generously provided from above?

 

Never mind, he had a dwarf to find, and then he had to find his way up and save twelve other dwarves and a wizard… Wait, he had not seen Gandalf during their scuffle with these orc creatures?

 

Shaking his head, he finally stood up.

 

And immediately saw a familiar iron-shod boot sticking out of the trumpet-shaped cap of one of the mushrooms nearby. Ori!

 

Pulling the young dwarf out, Cody wondered how such a small creature could be so heavy: reaching barely to the clone commander’s armpits, Ori weighed almost as much as one of the senior clone cadets might have. He found a patch of bare rock and laid the dwarf there to check his vitals. To his great relief Ori was breathing and had a steady heartbeat. Alive, then, just unconscious. No visible injuries or open wounds; the rest would have to wait until Ori came to.

 

As he was hovering over the dwarf, he suddenly became aware of a voice.

 

“Food, fresssh food, precious! Fressh and scrumptious, yes, juicy, yes! We shall feast, yes we shall, yes we shall.”

 

Cody peered around in the deep darkness, switching between the filters of his HUD to find who was talking. Finally IR captured it: from a crack in the rock, a side corridor if you please, a small, skinny orc crept out, hovering, slinking closer, clinging to the sloping cave walls not unlike a lizard, all the time muttering to himself.

 

“What is this, precious? Not an orc, no, not a goblin, no, no. Ohh, I knows, I knows! A dwarf. A nasty little dwarf ssleeping. Tasted a sleep mushroom, he did, fassst asleep, gollum, gollum! Crunchy and juicy.”

 

“Hey!” Cody shouted out, grabbing Stick and pointing it at the slinky creature. “Watch it, you orc! Not a step further!”

 

The creature paused, waiting motionlessly and quietly for several moments; even its rattling breathing quieted as if it was holding its breath. Cody, however, did not let the blaster waver. So the two watched each other carefully.

 

Finally the clone commander gave up and lowered his weapon. The reluctance to shoot not droids but real, live birth-born creatures was too deeply ingrained in him. “There’s lots of goblins back there, if you absolutely must,” he said, gesturing back to the chamber of mushrooms. “But you won’t touch my friend, or you will die.”

 

There was a gasp. “It can sssee uss?” the creature hissed.

 

Cody huffed. “Of course I can see you, you daft creature.”

 

“Why can it see uss?”

 

He didn’t even deign to grace that one with a reply. “Asleep, you say,” he said, mostly to himself, peering into Ori’s face and then back at the slimy mushrooms.

 

“Why can it see us, precioussss?” the creature repeated. Its voice turned suspicious and then shocked. “Hasss it betrayed us? It has betrayed us, gollum, gollum! Bad precious, traitorous precious! It can see us!”

 

With a howl, it fumbled something on one of its paws, and something glinted as it flew through the air, plunked against Cody’s breastplate and skittered down on the rocky floor just beside Ori’s insensate form.

 

Curious, Cody bent down and picked it up. It was a small, simple golden ring. He shrugged. Then, looking back at the creature, he was surprised to see the transformation. Where formerly he had only seen a vague IR image, just barely enough to see his form and movement, now he could actually make out  an outsized head with two bulbous, glowing eyes, a wide mouth with very few teeth, sticky limbs ending with webbed toes.

 

“Hey, what happened?” he said. “I can suddenly see you.”

 

At that statement the creature seemed to go mad. It let out an earsplitting screech. “Liar! It cheats us! It deceives us!” it wailed. “Precious! Precious!”

 

“What are you on about?”

 

“It says it can see, to get the precious! Nassty canned man cheats us!”

 

“Now see here…”

 

But apparently the creature was beyond reasoning. Snarling, it jumped and flew at Cody, claws flashing.

 

And met a blaster bolt on its way.

 

Shrugging again, Cody clipped Stick back to his belt. “There’s no cure for some,” he said philosophically, tucking the ring into his belt pocket.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, what can I say? Cody is not Bilbo.


	13. In the Halls of the Goblin King

   

The loss of Ori seemed to take the fight out of Dori and Nori; and with the loss of some of their strongest warriors, the dwarves were soon once again subdued. They were pushed and shoved along, accompanied by terrible shouts like, “Swish, smack! Whip crack!” until finally they stumbled into a vast cavern lit by many torches on the walls.

 

There were hundreds of goblins about, both big and small, brandishing various rusty but nevertheless pointy and sharp objects, snarling and slavering at the dwarves. Among them stood a huge, bloated creature who stood twice as high as the tallest of them. He was even taller than Kodi, had Kodi still been here among the dwarves, and about three times as wide. He was grotesquely fat and sported a goiter that seemed to contain half his brain. Behind him was a toilet seat that he seemed to use as his throne. The great goblin’s bulging eyes stared at them full of malice and disgust.

 

“Who are these miserable persons – if one can call them persons – cluttering up my throne room?”

 

"Throne room? Really?" Gloin muttered, receiving a goblin fist to his head for it.

 

“Trespassers, your malevolence! Found them sheltering in our front porch!” one of their captors squeaked.

 

“Our front porch? What do you mean by it? What are you – thieves, murderers?! Speak up! Not that it’ll matter in the end. I figure we’ll have some great sport soon, eh, my pretties?”

 

This pronouncement was greeted with loud whistles and jeers. The goblins jerked the ropes that were holding the dwarves and tried to pull Bombur’s long plaited beard. Bombur managed to kick one of them; several of the goblins ganged up on him, biting and kicking and screaming.

 

“SILENCE!” the great goblin yelled. “Let these miserable creatures answer.”

 

Thorin stepped out from between other dwarves and raised his head defiantly. “We are dwarves. We were making our way over these mountains and had to seek shelter from the rain. It’s not like you had a name plate on your so-called porch.”

 

“Liars! Liars!” came from all around them. “They killed several of us in our front porch with sorcery and lightning! And they came armed!”

 

Several goblin warriors made their way through the crowd. They carried the arms and equipment they had taken (torn, stolen, ripped off) from the dwarves. On top of the pile, glowing bright blue because of the closeness of orcs, lay Orcrist.

 

The great goblin pulled back with a sharp hiss. “What is this! The Biter! The Biter! The Goblin cleaver! I would know that sword anywhere! It has slain hundreds of my people. So this is what you have come to do? To assassinate me, to kill my people? You murderers and elf-friends! Slash them! Beat them! Bite them! Kill them!”

 

“Slash! Beat! Bite!” echoed from hundreds of mouths through the cavern. “Slash! Kill!”

 

“No, wait! I have a better idea!” the great goblin announced. “Let us try out how sharp this thing is, shall we? Does it cut, say.... Dwarven fur? What say you, my pretties?”

 

Balin, son of Fundin, stood at the right hand of his lord and king, as always, his mind half on the ruckus that was going on around him, half on the pile of weapons that lay before them. Or rather, those weapons that were missing from the pile.

 

***

 

A shot of adrenalin from Cody’s medkit (which had miraculously survived the fall) brought Ori back to the land of the living. And a good thing, that: on his own Cody would have no idea how to get back to the others. In fact, he had no idea what Ori could do, but reluctantly he had to admit to himself that he was more terrified of being alone than of all the orcs up there.

 

It took Ori a few moments to shake off cobwebs from his mind. However, when Cody told him he had no idea how to get out or where were the others, instead of panicking and worrying for his brothers, the young Dwarf looked around and just nodded seriously. "It is understandable, you are not a Dwarf. No Dwarf is ever lost under a mountain."

"What?"

"I think this mountain still remembers the Dwarrows' songs," Ori said, running his fingers along the rough rock. "It... It might help us." Then he started an odd ritual, pressing his hands and then his ears to the rock, listening for several moments, occasionally tapping odd rhythms with his fingertips and humming deep in his chest.

 

“This way,” Ori finally announced confidently. He led them through pathways that only he could recognise, occasionally stopping to repeat his strange ritual. Cody wondered, but after a couple of half-hearted questions that were quickly shushed by the Dwarf, he shrugged and let it go. As long as it worked, Cody had no issue with any sort of odd ritual or power. Hey, even the Jedi had had their uses.

 

So they went on for some time. Occasionally Cody as the bigger of the two had to squeeze through narrow gaps, rendering his tunic into a complete rag and leaving scratches in the proud orange paint of his armour – or what was left of it. However, somehow Ori always found passages where they could get through, with some effort. At least they were moving on, and Cody trusted that Ori had an idea where they were headed. There were only a couple of occasions when they actually retraced their steps for a bit; Ori was most apologetic for those.

 

Suddenly Ori stopped, his ear cocked. At first Cody could not hear anything, but then there was a soft sound, a swish... an echo of footsteps ahead of them. Quickly he switched off his headlamp and the two pulled into a side passage. Holding his breath, Cody let his fingers creep towards his blaster.

 

The footsteps approached. Patches of flickering light danced over the cave walls and they pressed themselves against the wall of the passage to try and stay in the shadows. As quietly as he could, Cody pushed Ori half behind him and released Stick’s safety.

 

A few feet from their hideout the footsteps stopped.

 

“Thank the Valar, there you two are. Hurry along now, we have a dozen dwarves to save and no time to dawdle, for the goblins are not merciful.”

 

“Gandalf!” Ori gasped, relief evident in his voice.

 

And indeed there the wizard was, shining light upon them from his staff. He looked them over quickly, nodding in apparent satisfaction, and then pulled a long sword from his belt. Cody recognised it as his king-sword and felt an odd sense of joy to see it again when in his mind he had already given it up as lost beyond hope. He did not think much of swords – well, they were quieter than blasters, that was their one advantage – but having been given this, by someone that, he had been told, was a very wise and very old Elven Lord of these lands, older even than General Yoda, had given him a certain sense of pride and purpose. Like he was not the useless lost puppy in a foreign land whom his own brothers had abandoned. Like he had, maybe, earned it somehow, a feeling that he wanted to hold on to.

 

He clipped Glamdring to the magnetic clip on his belt and then turned to see Gandalf setting a huge Dwarven hammer before Ori. “Arm yourselves,” the wizard said, “we must hurry.”

 

“Is that...” Cody asked, looking at the huge ornate thing.

 

The little scribe placed his hand over the handle, muttered, “May Mahal grant that I be worthy of your master. Help me free your master from enemies,” and hefted the huge thing with deceptive ease. Then he looked up at Cody, blinked and scowled and Cody realized that he must have been staring.

 

“Ori,” Gandalf said urgently, “Can you guide us?”

 

“I am not as good as Nori,” Ori admitted, “but I’m a dwarf and the mountain seems to be happy to have me here.”

 

“And rightly so, my  dear boy. Rightly so.”

 

Ori glowed at Gandalf’s praise and off they went again, Ori listening and leading the way. The passageways meandered this way and that, now moving up and then down, left and right, criss-crossing and branching off, until Cody had hopelessly lost any sense of direction, even with the automatic mapping software in his HUD. And they seemed to go on and on. Was this whole mountain hollow inside? And how likely was it that they would find the others in this crazy, dark, endless maze?

 

“Do you know the situation of all the others, Gandalf?” Cody demanded as he hurried after the other two. “Do you have a plan?”

 

“No, I have no plan, Kodi. But I trust in the will of the One. We managed to find each other and I take this as a good sign.”

 

Cody rolled his eyes. Figures. Go out to a completely different world, and the one familiar thing you can find there is some old coot spouting Jedi-speak.

 

***

 

Cody was soon forced to rethink the advantages and disadvantages of the sword, as they reached the orc-inhabited corridors and began to come across goblins going about their daily business. Glamdring did its job quietly and efficiently, as did the Dwarven war hammer and the glowing, vaguely leaf-shaped dagger that Gandalf had picked up from the troll hoard.

 

And then they stood on a branched corridor opening up into a huge hall lit up with the occasional torch. There were hundreds of orcs there swarming about, yelling and screaming and jeering and clapping, and in the middle of them stood Thorin’s company.

 

Well, “stood” was perhaps the wrong word. Thorin was kneeling before a huge, pale, ugly and sick-looking monster, held down by at least a dozen weird twisted things. His head was bent, as if in defeat while a particularly ugly creature in rusted junk armour stood over him, holding Orcrist to his jugular. And of Thorin's rich black mane of hair, only a few tufts remained, smeared with blood and gore. Red rivulets were running down his face where careless orcs had nicked the tough skin. Somehow, it seemed that all the fight had gone out of the proud Dwarven leader.

 

Ori’s hand flew to his mouth and silent tears ran down his face as he observed the scene. Even Gandalf froze for a second, then uttered something under his breath that Cody took to be some kind of curse.

 

Then the wizard straightened, seemingly growing taller and broader, and there was a dark fire in his eyes. “I will create a diversion,” he said. “This will give us but a few moments before the enemy rallies. Kodi, take this way and attack from above; I will take this corridor. Ori, be prepared to lead us out and keep the way free. And be sure to protect your eyes, three, too, one – NOW.”

 

***


End file.
